2 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
should then have only one Cedar ; one Picea Cephalonica to represent that tree and P. Apo lUnis; one Pinus 
strobus to represent it, P. excelsa, and P. petice, and perhaps P. monticola, and so on. This we are not 
prepared to accede to. We would pay more regard to the Professor’s statement, that he had met with 
“ numerous intermediate forms meeting,” if by that we could understand that there was a gradual change 
operating on all the specimens of the trees as we went northward, so that the southern form glided by 
imperceptible degrees through all the gradations, from the ordinary form in the south to this form in the 
north of the Scandinavian peninsula. But Professor Andersson does not say this. As we understand 
him, he only says that at the places he specifies he found exceptional specimens which he could not 
determine whether to allot to the one type or the other; but that there exists in Northern Sweden 
an, alpine form differing from the southern form. According to the other information we have 
received, the faCt is that this alpine form is not only found in the north of Lapland, but is confined 
to that district; and any intermediate form, or supposed intermediate form, found elsewhere, is not of 
general occurrence over the whole district where it is found, but exceptional and individual: as we find 
occasionally on Mount Atlas specimens of the Cedrus A tlantica having apparently all the characters by 
which we are wont to distinguish the Cedrus Libani. 
The most distinctive characters of this species are no doubt such as would appear in Abies excelsa by 
arrested development. The smallness of the cones and the rounded margins of the scales are character¬ 
istic of the young cones of A . excelsa , the scales in it becoming gradually more rhomboidal as they increase 
in age; so the short leaves and the fewer rows of stomata are what is found in the young state of its 
leaf: and it may be said, that, being so, these characters are mere evidences of the severity of the climate in 
which this tree lives, and not specific distinctions. So far as regards the origin of the species, there can be 
no doubt that these peculiarities correCtly indicate the source from which it has sprung, as well as the pro¬ 
cess by which it has been established. But it by no means follows that because they prove the plant to 
have sprung from Abies excelsa , and to have assumed them through certain conditions of life, it must there¬ 
fore still be A. excelsa. Permanent arrestment, increase or divergence of development, would, on this prin¬ 
ciple, give us every species of plant or animal as a state of some other species. We know that in the 
embryo of the upper animals, all the classes of inferior animals are successively typified ; and there seems 
no good reason why indications of arrested or increased development should be regarded as evidence of 
specific identity, any less than what we might call lateral development. We therefore prefer to put this 
element aside, and, looking at the characters as we find them, decide upon those which we find per¬ 
manent, regardless of what they may have been at some former period in the history of the species. 
Geographical Distribution and History .—Found in Swedish Lapland and in Finland, also occupying 
the interior of Russian Lapland, and generally extending over the whole of the extreme north of the 
Scandinavian peninsula. 
The first notice of this species may perhaps be a remark in Dr Wahlenberg’s “ Flora Lap- 
ponica,” published in 1812. In it he attempts to characterise the climate of the Lapland Alps by 
dividing them into zones. In his description of these he says, “On approaching the Lapland Alps 
(Fjall) we first arrive at the line where the Spruce Fir, Pinus Abies , ceases to grow. This tree had 
previously assumed an unusual appearance, that of a tall slender pole, covered from the ground with short 
drooping dark branches, a gloomy object in these desolate forests.” The “tall slender pole” here alluded 
to may have been this species. 
Its distinctness was not, however, definitely pointed out until 1858, when M. Ph. Fries, on his return 
from a voyage in East Finmark, noticed it in a grove of Firs on the west side of Colmajaur, nearly two 
English miles from Swanvik, in north lat. 69° 30", near the Russian frontier. He thought it was the Pinus 
orientalis of Linnaeus, distinguished not only by the obovate scales of the cones, but also by the cones being 
ereCt, as described by Russian authors. (See “ Ledebour Flora Rossica,” vol. iii. p. 671.) The idea that 
the cones were ereCt proved, however, to be a mistake. M. Fries’ discovery was noticed in a paper intitled 
“ Synopsis 
