66 
position. Abies amahilis is not injured by cold, but has not grown 
better in the Arboretum than it usually grows in cultivation; and the 
California form of the White Fir {Abies concolor\ lives, but does not 
equal here in beauty the Rocky Mountain form of this tree. Other 
species of the region, Pinus Balfouriana, Picea Breweriana and Cup- 
ressus Macnabiana, are alive but still too young to give any adequate 
idea of their value, and plants of the two west coast species of Cham- 
aecyparis only just keep alive. The regions therefore from which con¬ 
ifers can be drawn for New England plantations are restricted, and it 
is not now probable that another species suited to this climate will be 
discovered, except possibly on the northwestern borders of China or on 
the southern slopes of the Altai Mountains. The number of species in 
the collection does not of course represent its richness for many coni¬ 
fers, especially in the genera Picea, Thuya, Tsuga and Juniperus, pro¬ 
duce many abnormal forms and there are more of these forms in the 
collection than there are species. 
Taxaceae. What is true of conifers in New England is true also of 
the related Taxus Family, which with five genera is represented here 
by Taxus, Torreya and Cephalotaxus, and of its sixteen species eight, 
with several varieties, are more or less flourishing here. 
If the plants growing in the Arboretum give but a poor idea of the 
conifers of the world it offers in its herbarium exceptional opportunity 
for the study of these plants, for in the Arboretum herbarium are 
representatives often in long suites of specimens of all the species with 
the exception of a few little known trees from the interior of New 
Guinea and New Caledonia. The Arboretum is well provided, too, with 
photographs of cone-bearing plants, and in its library are found all the 
important books and papers which have been published on these plants. 
Native Conifers. The species of northeastern North America are the 
White Pine {Pinus Strobus), the Red Pine {Pinus resinosa), the Pitch 
Pine (P. rigida), and the Jack Pine (P. Banksiana), the White Spruce 
{Picea glauca), the Red Spruce (P. rubra), the Black Spruce (P. mari- 
ana), the Balsam Fir {Abies balsamifera), the Hemlock {Tsuga cana¬ 
densis), the Arborvitae {Thuja occidentalis), the White Cedar {Chamae- 
cy parts thy aides), the Red Cedar {Juniperus virginiana), the common 
Juniper {Juniperus communis) and its dwarf variety depressa, and the 
prostrate Juniperus horizontalis. Of these plants the White Pine, the 
Red Pine, the Hemlock, the Red Cedar and the Arborvitae are trees 
of great value and beauty, but in speaking of them it must not be for¬ 
gotten that the White Pine is threatened by a serious disease which 
makes its planting on a large scale undesirable. Among the hard 
Pines Pinus resinosa is better worth growing than any of the exotic 
species which have been tried here. The other native Pines have 
little to recommend them as ornamental or timber trees. The White 
Spruce, which just reaches from the north the extreme northern part 
of the United States, is a handsome, fast-growing tree, but in Massa¬ 
chusetts, where the climate is too warm for it, it is apt to grow thin 
and unsightly before it is fifty years old. The Red Spruce, which is 
the timber spruce of the northeastern states and the Appalachian 
Mountains, grows naturally more slowly than the other trees of New 
England and in the Arboretum it has never proved a success. The 
Black Spruce is a small tree which grows naturally in deep swamps 
