Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL IV 
NO. 18 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. NOVEMBER 22. 1918 
Dwarf Conifers. Of many of the cone-bearing trees there are ab- 
normal dwarf forms, and a few conifers are naturally dwarf shrubs. 
The former are of different origin; most of them are seedlings, some 
have grown from buds on branches of large trees, and others have 
been produced by exposure to excessive cold and high winds, and these 
when transferred to more favorable surroundings often lose their dwarf 
habit. A good example of a dwarf of the last class is the depauper- 
ate Larch which grows at the timber line on Mt. Fugi in Japan. 
Seedlings of this little plant raised in the Arboretum twenty-five years 
ago are now nearly of the same size as the seedlings of the trees of 
the Japanese valleys raised at the same time. In the sandy swamps 
of Prince Edward Island Black Spruces not more than two feet high 
produce cones and fertile seeds^ and near the timber line of the White 
Mountains it is possible to walk on dwarf mats of the Balsam Fir which 
lower down on these mountains is a tall tree. Transferred to better 
soil where the winter climate is less severe these alpine and boreal 
dwarfs would soon assume the tree habit of the species. Dwarfs of 
some species, however, which evidently owe their habit to environment, 
retain the dwarf habit when transferred to more favorable surroundings. 
Such dwarfs are some of the forms of the European Pinus montana from 
high altitudes and some dwarf forms of Junipers which reproduce the 
dwarf form in their seedlings. Seedling dwarfs have been produced by 
many different species, but they are naturally most numerous in species 
which have been largely raised in nurseries where seedlings are care- 
fully watched and abnormal forms are preserved. It is not surprising 
therefore, that trees like the eastern Arbor Vitae and the Norway 
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