66 
promise of usefulness in this climate. All the new Chinese Pines are 
uninjured and are growing rapidly, but unfortunately the borer which 
disfigures the native White Pine (Pinus Strobus) and the Himalayan 
White Pine (P. excelsa) kills nearly every year the leader of the Chin- 
ese White Pine (P. Armandi). One of the Korean Firs {Abies holo- 
phylla) was first raised in the Arboretum sixteen years ago. It has 
proved perfectly hardy here and has grown rapidly, but the leaves are 
too yellow to make it a really ornamental plant. Possibly, however, 
the yellow leaves are due to improper or insufficient nourishment. 
Wilson from his journey in Korea brought back a large quantity of 
the seeds of this fine tree which he found making great forests in the 
northern part of the country, and for the plants raised here from these 
seeds it may be possible to find the soil and situation Abies holophylla 
requires. 
Now that they have passed uninjured through such severe winters 
the statement often made in these Bulletins may be made again, that 
the best conifers which have been brought into Massachusetts from 
other parts of the United States and from foreign countries are the 
Carolina Hemlock {Tsuga caroliniana), the White Fir of Colorado 
{Abies concoLor), the Ab>es homole pis of Japan, the so-called Red Cedar 
{Thuya plicata) of the northwestern part of this country, the Serbian 
Spruce {Picea omorika), the western White Pine {Pinus monticola'^ the 
Japanese White Pine {Pinus parvijlora), the Golden Larch {Pseudofarix 
amabilis), and the Rocky Mountain form of the Douglas Spruce {Pseu- 
dotsuga taxifolia); and to this list must be added, although they are 
not true conifers, the Chinese Ginkgo biloba and the forms of the Jap- 
anese Taxus cuxpidata which many persons believe is the most val- 
uable plant Japan has sent to the United States. 
Tsuga caroliniana was first raised at the Arboretum in 1884. The 
plants have grown more rapidly than those of the northern Hemlock 
{T. canadensis) and are now handsome trees with their lower branches 
resting on the ground. Even in the most exposed positions they have 
not suffered from cold; and in the Arboretum the Carolina Hemlock 
has proved to be one of the handsomest of the conifers which can be 
grown in Massachusetts. Seeds of the Colorado form of Abies concolor 
were first planted in the Arboretum in 1874 and the tallest plant in the 
collection is nearly sixty feet high and a perfect cone from the ground 
up. Like all Firs in this climate, this tree will sooner or later lose its 
lower branches, but for forty years at least the Colorado White Fir 
as an ornamental tree can be depended on here. The value of the 
Japanese Abies homolepis in the eastern states is less well known as 
this handsome tree is still rare in American collections, but with our 
present knowledge it is safe to speak of it as one of the best of the 
exotic conifers hardy in New England. It was not planted in the 
Arboretum until 1882, but the three largest specimens in the country, 
the one planted by Mr. Dana at Dosoris, Long Island, and those in 
the Hunnewell Pinetum and at Holm Lea, Brookline, Massachusetts, 
are now from fifty to seventy feet tall and furnished to the ground 
with branches. In the coast region of the northwestern states and of 
British Columbia Thuya plicata grows to a great size and is one of 
the handsomest and most valuable timber trees of North America. It 
ranges eastward to the mountains of Idaho and northern Montana; and 
