2 
PINETUM BRITANNICUM. 
Fig. 13. Fig. 14. 
Fig. 15- 
fiana. 
Fig. 16. 
Fig. 17. Fig. 18. 
accord with our own, we prefer to refer it to imperfect obfervation on the part of Mr Brown or our- 
felves, inftead of, on fuch a flight difference, to affume his tree to be diftinCt from the prefent, with which 
it in all other refpeCts correfponds. Seeds fmall, teflaceous brown, fub-triangular [fig. 13, 
magnified]; the wings pale and oblong ovate [fig. 14, wings and feeds natural fize], break¬ 
ing readily from the feed. 
This tree has been erroneoufly fuppofed to be the fame as Abies Mertenfiana , a fpecies from Sitka, 
which was defcribed by Bongard in an article intitled “ Obfervations on the Vegetation of the I Hand 
of Sitcha,” publifhed in the Memoires de l'Academic Imperiale des Sciences de St Petersburg , 6th 
feries, vol. ii. p. 119. They are certainly nearly allied to each other, the Sitka fpecies being no doubt 
the reprefentative of the Hemlock Spruce in that ifland, but they differ in the following particulars: both 
are true Hemlock Spruces, but in this fpecies the pulvini are fmall and widely feparated, while in Bon- 
gard’s they are placed unufually clofe to each other. We know of no Hemlock Spruce which has them fo 
clofe to each other, and Bongard, in his defcription, takes particular notice of this character. 
He fays that “ the branches and branchlets are very much tuberculated after the leaves have 
fallen.” Figs. 1 and 2 reprefent the pulvini on a branch and branchlet 
of this fpecies; fig. 15 fhews a portion of a twig of the true A . Merten- 
The cones alfo are different. Fig. 7 fhews the cone of A. Albertiana, 
and fig. 16 that of A. Mertenfiana . The fcales are differently fhaped [fee fig. 
8, reprefenting the former, and figs. 17 and 18, the latter]. The defcription 
of the fcale given by Bongard Efficiently indicates this form, it being faid to be kidney-fhaped, and 
five lines broad, while Jeffreys is in no refpeCt kidney-fhaped, but oblong-oval. 
The fpecies is, moreover, diftantly related to A. Pattoniana and A. Hookeriana; but even in 
the young hate an examination of the leaves with a lens will at once difiinguifh them. A . Hookeriana 
has the edges of the leaf entire. A. Pattoniana and this fpecies have a tendency to ferration. A. 
Pattoniana has ftomata irregularly fcattered on the upper fide of the leaf, while this fpecies and A. 
Hookeriana have not. The leaves of A. Pattoniana and A. Hookeriana have a fhort flat footftalk. 
Thofe of this fpecies have a longer one. The cones are wholly different, that of this fpecies being much 
fmaller than that of the others, and having fpecific differences in fhape, form of the bracf, &c., for which 
reference may be made to the defcription of the fpecies themfelves. 
Mr Gordon defcribes it as A. Mertenfiana in his “ Pinetum.” He has there imported into what 
appears a defcription taken from young plants, part of Bongard’s defcription, which is inconflftent with 
that of this fpecies; for inftance, that the fcales of the cone are kidney-fhaped, and that the branchlets 
are “ much tuberculated when old , from the falling leaves.” A mifreading of Bongard’s defcription, no 
doubt, for he (Bongard) merely fays, “ branches and branchlets exceflively tuberculated when the leaves 
have fallenand fays nothing about its happening when old , a character which can only have crept in per 
incuriam, for it is furely not lefs inconflftent with nature than it is with this fpecies to have a tree which is 
not much tuberculated, from the fall of the leaves when young, becoming fo when old; the ufual courfe of 
events being, that with age the tubercles (or pulvini) wholly difappear. In his “Supplement,” Mr Gordon 
abandons the tuberculation, and fays that the bark is much divided by fiffures on the ftems of old trees, 
but fomewhat fmooth on the younger ones. This frefh information as to the fiffures on old trees has 
probably been obtained from fome of the collectors in California, unlefs, indeed, it be a new reading of 
Bongard’s term “ tuberculations.” We have as yet no old trees in Britain, and we cannot find in any 
author to whofe works we have accefs fuch a ftatement as the above. Mr Gordon alfo gives Lewis and 
Clarke’s A. heterophylla , Rafinefque, as a fynonym of this fpecies. Their A. heterophylla , however, is one 
of the fpecies which they have left as a puzzle to botanifts; and although Mr Gordon is probably happier 
in this guefs than he often is in his conjectures as to fynonymy, the information left by thefe travellers is too 
meagre to warrant more than a cautious guefs or a guarded fuggeftion as to their identity. 
The chief, if not the only fpecialty, in which the account of A . heterophylla agrees with this fpecies 
is the cone, which is defcribed as being not longer than the end of a man’s thumb, foft, flexible, of an ovate 
form, 
