6 
THE FLORIST AND POMOLOGIST. 
[January, 
lower elevations than the other. Old trees 
become bare and quite unsightly, but the large 
pale cones in their tops are a very conspicu¬ 
ous feature.” 
Miss Bird [Lady’s Life in the Rocky Moun¬ 
tains) calls the tree the Silver Spruce, and re¬ 
marks that its shape and colour are both beau¬ 
tiful. “ My heart,” she says, “ warms towards 
it, and I frequent all the places where I can find 
it. It looks as if a soft blue silver powder 
bad fallen on its deep green needles, or as if 
a bluish hoar-frost, which must melt at noon, 
were resting upon it. Anyhow one can hardly 
believe that the beauty is permanent, and sur¬ 
vives the summer heat and the wunter cold.” 
The finest example of the Blue Spruce Fir 
growing in this country is, we believe, to be 
found in the Knap Hill Nursery, This plant 
was referred to by us in our volume for 1879 
(p. 164) in the following terms : “ One of the 
most interesting is the Blue Spruce of Colorado, 
Abies Parryana, or as it will probably have to 
be called Picea Parryana. This beautiful plant 
is very symmetrically branched and furnished 
with spreading needle-shaped leaves, so in¬ 
tensely glaucous as to impart to it a distinctly 
blue colour. It has been referred to Abies 
Menziesii and to A. Engelmanni, but we are 
much inclined to think it is distinct from either. 
Certainly, when regarded as an ornamental 
tree, the glaucous form must be set down as 
being by many points the best and handsomest 
of the Spruces. Many of the seedlings, how¬ 
ever, come green, and the rest vary in the 
glaucous colouring,” so that the finer selected 
densely glaucous plants become enhanced in 
value. 
% 
The Knap Hill plant is now of considerable 
size, and indeed might be taken as the original 
from which the accompanying illustration (from 
the Gardeners' Chronicle) was prepared. Our 
contemporary speaks of it as “ one of the 
very handsomest, if not the handsomest of all 
the Spruces. The beautiful Blue Spruce of 
the Rocky Mountains never occurs in forests, 
but is scattered along the banks of mountain 
streams. When young, as all the plants in this 
country are necessarily, there is no more beau¬ 
tiful object for symmetry or colour. The 
true P. Engelmanni forms extensive forests at 
elevations of from 9,000 to 11,000 feet and 
upwards, and has pubescent, not glabrous. 
branchlets, blunter leaves, cinnamon coloured, 
not greyish bark, and smaller cones. Messrs. 
Veitch speak of it in their Manual as the most 
ornamental of all the American Spruces ; its 
remarkable colour and beautiful outline ren¬ 
dering it one of the best of Conifers for the 
lawn. We have now observed the tree grow¬ 
ing in a variety of situations, and can fully 
confirm everything that has been put forth as 
to its singular beauty. The illustration was 
taken from a specimen growing in Professor 
Sargent’s garden, at Brookline, which mea¬ 
sures 16 feet 7 inches in height, and was raised 
from seed collected in Colorado by Dr. C. S, 
Parry in 1862.—T. Moore. 
COB^A SCANDENS VABIEGATA. 
NE of the handsomest examples of this 
climber that the lover of plants and 
flowers can see in a day’s journey is to 
be found in the outskirts of a village 
six miles from Glasgow, called Bailleston. It 
is the property of Mr. Robert Ward, of Cross¬ 
bill Cottage. This unpretending residence, 
Swiss cottage-like in its outlines, has attached 
to it quite a street of glass covering about 700 
feet lengthways, and is made up of vineries 
and peacheries, fern-house, ornamental plant 
houses, camellia-house, and corridors all on 
the most approved modern fashion, clean, neat, 
and as comfortable and cosy as the cottage 
itself and the happy fireside in connection 
with it. 
Entering from the business room into a 
glass corridor about 80 feet long and 6 feet 
wide, the visitor gets embosomed among the 
handsome tendrilled branches of Cohaia scan- 
dens variegata. Planted against the house 
wall, it is trained along the roof on a neat wire 
trellis, and the branchlets hang down in the 
most captivating manner all along the corri¬ 
dor and into the gables of the camellia-house 
standing at right angles. It covers quite 80 
yards lengthways, and if one was to measure 
its branches there are actually miles of it. 
My object in noticing this plant is to show 
all who may have the fancy of covering, or 
rather festooning, in the best fashion similar 
places, that there are no cheaper or better¬ 
looking subjects than this for furnishing such 
a situation ; the large ovate-lanceolate leaves, 
green in the centre with irregular margining 
