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Spruce have produced many such forms in nurseries as few other cone- 
bearing trees have been so largely raised from seed. 
It is only in recent years that dwarf conifers have attracted m.uch 
attention, for Loudon in his “Arboretum et Fruticetum Botanicum” 
published in 1838 enumerates only ten. These are two dwarf forms of 
Pinus montana, two forms of the Norway Spruce, a dwarf Cedar of 
Lebanon, a dwarf Red Cedar {Juniperus virginiana), a prostrate form of 
Juniperus sabina, and two dwarf forms of Juniperus communis. He 
knew no dwarf Arbor Vitae, Chamaecyparis, Hemlock, or dwarf form 
of Abies. Beissner in the second edition of his “Handbuch der Nadel- 
holzkunde, ” published in 1899, enumerates one hundred and four dwarf 
conifers in thirty-one species; of these twenty-five are forms of the 
Norway Spruce, eight are forms of Lawson’s Cypress {Chamaecyparis 
Lawsoniana), and eight are forms of the Arbor Vitae of the eastern 
United States. In addition to the plants enumerated by Beissner there 
are a few which originated in this country and which do not appear to 
have been known to him. 
There is a good but by no means a complete collection of dwarf con- 
ifers in the Arboretum, for it is difficult to keep track of the new 
forms which appear in the nurseries where large numbers of conifers 
are raised from seed and are often given names without descriptions, 
and some dwarfs like those of Lawson’s Cypress and the Chinese Ar- 
bor Vitae are not hardy here. The Arboretum collection is much vis- 
ited, however, by nurserymen for there is now a demand for these 
plants, which have their uses in small gardens and are less happily 
planted in making low banks of foliage about the base of suburban 
cottages. 
Perhaps the handsomest of the dwarf conifers in the Arboretum col- 
lection is a form of the Japanese Pinus densijiora (var. umbraculifera). 
This is a wide, vase-shaped plant which in Japanese gardens is often ten 
feet high and broader than high. The leaves are of a bright cheerful 
green and comparatively small plants flower and produce minute cones. 
Among the fourteen or fifteen dwarf forms of the Norway Spruce 
none is handsomer than one of the varieties described by Louden in 
1839 (var. Clanbrasiliana). This is a low, very compact, round-topped 
bush which rarely grows more than three feet high but spreads to a 
diameter much greater than its height. The plant is said to have orig- 
inated on the Moira estate near Belfast, Ireland, toward the end of 
the eighteenth century and to have been carried to England by Lord 
Clanbrasil for whom it was named. Equally good is the variety nana 
which has a flatter top and does not grow as tall as the Clanbrasiliana 
but spreads into a broad bush. The subglobose var. Gregoriana and 
the variety prostrata are interesting plants. Some of the dwarf 
Norway Spruces, especially the variety Ellwangeriana, have a ten- 
dency at the end of a few years to form a vigorous leading shoot and 
eventually to become arborescent. 
Two dwarfs originated in the Arboretum in 1874 among seedlings of 
Picea pungens, the Colorado Blue Spruce and Abies lasiocarpa. The 
original plant of the former is now seven feet high and ten or twelve 
