January  7.  19C4.  JGURiyAL  OF  110B.TIGULTURE  AND  COT^'AGE  GARDENER. 
Exotic  Conifers  in  Britain.* 
Althougli  Great  Britain  has  only  a  small  percentage  of  forest 
land,  she  is  able  to  show  a  great  variet3"  of  extra-European 
species  of  trees,  many  specimens  of  which  have  attained  to  a 
size  that  is  prohablj'  not  equalled  elsewhere  in  Europe.  It  mmst 
he  said,  however,  that  much  more  attention  has  been  given 
to  the  introduction  of  conifers  than  of  dicotyledons,  a  result 
doubtle.ss  due  to  the  fact  that  the  humid  climate  of  Britain  is 
pre-eminently"  adapted  to  the  requirements  of  the  former  class 
of  trees.  There  seem  to  be,  speaking  generally",  three  out¬ 
standing  features  in  the  exotic  coniferous  trees  of  Great 
Britain: — (1)  Their  age;  in  a  large  number  of  cases  M"e  possess 
the  oldest  specimens  in  Europe.  (2)  Their  size ;  the  rate  of 
growth  being  ustially  very  satisfactory.  (3)  Their  abundance  ; 
the  number  of  places  where  important  collections  of  well- 
matured  conifers  are  to  be  found  being  counted  by  hundreds. 
Of  the  species  of  trees  now  growing  in  Bi-itain  only  a  few 
are  known  to  have  been  present  in  pre-glacial,  inter-glacial, 
and  post-glacial  times.  With  regard  to  some  of  these  it  may 
be  said  that  although  they  are  present  in  Britain  to-day,  and 
were  undoubtedly  present  in  pre-Roman  times,  it  is  possible 
that  they  became  extinct  in  prehistoric  times  to  be  afterwards 
introduced  by  the  Romans,  or  in  the  period  subsequent  to  the 
Norman  Conquest.  This  is  certainly  true  of  Picea  excelsa, 
Rhamnus  frangula,  Pyrus  torminalis,  Pyrus  Aria,  and  Carpinus 
Bet  ulus,  whose  remains  have  been  found  in  pre-glacial  deposits, 
but  not  in  the  peat  bogs  or  other  deposits  of  post-glacial  times. 
The  Spruce  is  believed  to  have  been  re-introduced  by  man 
in  the  sixteenth  century.  Perhaps  it  is  fair  to  assume  that 
trees  met  with  in  the  peat  bogs  and  fluviatile  and'  lacustrine 
deposits  of  post-glacial  times  have  persisted  right  through  the 
centuries  that  separate  the  Neolithic  period  from  the  present 
day,  and  that  such  species  are  therefore,  in  the  strict  sense  of 
the  term,  indigenous  to  Britain.  The  following  is  the  list 
(omitting  mere  shrubs  such  as  Prunus  spinosa.  Viburnum 
Opulus,  Sambucus  nigra,  Cornus  sanguinea,  Salix  cinerea, 
A'c.) : — Ilex  Aquifolium,  Acer  campestre.  Primus  domestica, 
Prunus  Avium,  Prunus  Padus,  Pyrus  Aucuparia,  Pyu'us  com¬ 
munis,  Crataegus  oxyacantha,  Fraxinus  excelsior,  Ulmus 
montana,  Betula  alba,  Alnus  glutinosa,  Corylus  Avellana, 
Quercus  sessilifiora,  Quercus  pedunculata,  Fagus  sylvatica, 
Salix  caprea,  Populus  tremula,  Taxus  baccata,  and  Pinus 
sylvestris.t 
A  few  are  believed  to  have  been  introduced  by  the  Romans, 
c.r/.,  Juglans  regia,  Castanea  vesca,  Acer  P,seudoplatanus,  Tilia 
europsea;  white  others  found  their  way  to  Britain  in  the 
sixteenth  or  seventeenth  centuries,  p.q.,  ^Esculus  Hippo- 
castanum,  Populus  alba,  Picea  excelsa,  Abies  pectinata,  Larix 
eiiropsea.  Although  the  last-named  was  introduced  about  the 
middle  of  the  seventeenth  century,  it  was  not  till  the  second 
cpiarter  of  the  eighteenth  century  that  its  cultivation,  especially 
in  Scotland,  was  undertaken  on  a  large  scale. 
The  introductions  of  the  nineteenth  century  are  much  the 
most  numerous  and  interesting,  and  it  is  chiefly  these  that 
occur  to  our  mind  when  we  speak  of  the  acclimatisation  of 
exotics.  Before,  however,  reviewing  these  recent  introduc¬ 
tions,  it  may  be  well  to  look  for  a  little  at  the  climate  of 
Bi’itain,  the  peculiar  character  of  which  has  proved  so  favour¬ 
able  to  tree-growth. 
The  climate  of  Britain  is  characterised  by  the  comparative 
mildness  of  the  winters  and  the  coolness  of  the  summers.  If 
these  two  factors  varied  to  a  like  extent,  the  mean  temperature 
of  London  would  be  the  same  as  that  of  other  places  in  the 
same  latitude,  say,  Warsaw  ;  but,  in.stead  of  this,  we  find  the 
mean  temperature  of  liondon  to  be  the  same  (about  49.5deg 
F.)  as  that  of  Vienna,  which  is  situated  over  3deg  of  latitude 
further  south.  The  contrast  with  Munich  is  even  more  strik¬ 
ing.  the  mean  annual  temperature  of  this  city  being  about 
4deg  F.  below  that  of  London.  This  means  that  the  mildness 
of  the  English  winter  is  relatively  more  pronounced  than  the 
coolness  of  the  Engli.sh  summer.  In  January  the  mean  tem¬ 
perature  of  much  of  Ireland  and  of  the  west  of  Scotland  and 
England  is  the  same  as  that  of  Avignon,  Florence,  and  Con¬ 
stantinople;  whereas  in  July  London  is  not  so  warm  as  Memel, 
which  lies  more  than  5deg  further  north.  In  winter  the 
greater  part  of  Britain  is  lOdeg  or  12deg  warmer  than  Munich 
oj"  Vienna,  whereas  in  July  the  temperatui’e  of  Vienna  is  nearly 
7deg  F.  above  that  of  London. 
While  the  rate  of  tree-growth  may  lie  much  affected  by 
summer  temperature,  what  determines  the  que.stion  as  to 
whether  a  particular  .species  may  be  successfully  grown  in  a 
])lace  is  not  so  much  the  mean  summer  or  mean  winter  tem- 
lieratures  as  the  minimum  winter  temperatui'e.  On  the  west 
coast  of  Scotland  and  England,  and  over  the  greater  part  of 
Ireland,  it’  is  a  comparatively  rare  event  for  the  temperature 
*  Translation  of  a  paper  contributed  by  Dr.  Somerville  to  the  Congress  of 
forestry  Experimental  Stations,  Vienna,  September.  1903.  Reprinted  from  the 
.Tournal  of  the  Board  of  Agriculture. 
-t  Clement  Reid.  ‘‘The  Origin  of  the  British  Flora.” 
to  sink  below  20deg  while  any-  snow  that  may  fall  lies  for, 
at  most,  but  a  few  days.  In  the  centre  and  east  of  England 
and  Scotland  two  or  tliree  weeks  of  frost  may  be  experienced 
each  winter,  when  the  thermometer  may  sink  to  l-ldeg  F., 
and  occasionally,  though  very  rarely",  to  below  zero.  The 
figures  for  certain  stations  for  the  five  years  1893-1897  are 
shown  in  Table  I.,  which  has  been  kindly  compiled  for  the 
purpose  of  this  paper  by  the  Meteorological  Office.  [Omitted 
from  this  reprint.] 
It  is  in  winters  of  unusual  .severity  that  the  climate  of 
Britain  contra.sts  most  favourably  with  that  of  the  I'est  of 
Europe.  February,  1895,  was  an  exceptionally  cold  month 
over  the  whole  of  Europe,  but  the  mean  minimum  temperature 
(24deg  F.)  of  that  month  in  London  was  no  lower  than  that 
experienced  along  the  west  coast  of  France  and  in  the  Riviera, 
Central  Italy,  and  Turkey.  In  the  same  month  the  mean 
minimum  temperature  was  18.5deg  F.  in  Vienna,  and  16.5deg  F. 
in  Munich,  while  the  absolute  minimum  temperature  recorded 
was  lldeg  F.  in  London,  4.5deg  F.  in  Vienna,  and  — 4deg  L. 
in  Munich.  Other  data  are  .shown  in  Table  II.  [here  omitted], 
the  figures  being  given  to  the  nearest  half-degree. 
In  the  month  of  May,  Britain  and  Austria  have  each  about 
200  hours  of  sunshine,  whereas  in  December  the  amount  of 
sun.shine  in  Airstria  (50-100  hours)  is  about  double  that  in 
Britain.  On  the  mean  of  the  year  Britain  gets  from  27  to 
30  per  cent,  of  its  possible  sunshine  (1,200-1,600  hours),  whereas 
Aiustria  gets  40  to  50  per  cent.  (1,800-2,000  houns). 
In  .January  seven-tenths  of  the  sky  in  Great  Britain  is 
obscured  by  cloud,  whereas  in  Austria  six-tenths  only  is 
covered  by  cloud.  In  July  the  .sky  is  clouded  to  the  extent  of 
six-tenths  in  the  south  of  England,  and  eight-tenths  in  the 
north  of  Scotland,  as  contrasted  with  only  four-tenths  in 
Austria. 
As  regards  annual  rainfall  it  may  be  said  that  the  east  of 
Britain  receives  20in  to  30in,  whereas  twice  this  amount  falls 
Odontoglossum  x  Vuylstekei  vivicans. 
in  the  west,  .some  small  areas  receiving  more  than  150in.  The 
larger  part  of  Germany  and  Austria  receives  annually  about 
30in  of  rain,  40in  falling  in  the  Hartz  and  Carpathians,  and 
coin  in  some  parts  of  the  Tyrol. 
(To  be  continued.) 
Water  Bouquets. 
It  is  rather  .sti’ange  that  fashion  is  not  more  pronounced  in 
claiming  the  aid  of  these  very  pretty  forms  of  room  or  table 
decoration.  The  water,  combined  with  the  glas.s,  magnify  the 
enclosed  flowers,  and  give  them  a  very  pleasing,  if  exaggerated, 
appearance.  They  can  be  easily  made,  and  the  wherewithal  is 
always  at  hand.  '  Ordinary  deep  plates  and  finger  glasses  are 
all  that  are  required.  The  flowers  will  also  stand  from  four  days 
to  a  week  immersed  in  the  water.  At  this  season  Holly  and 
other  berried  plants  arranged  in  this  way  give  a  vei'y  charming 
effect  in  rooms,  or  on  tables,  or  wherever  placed.  The  flowers 
must  be  tied  to  a  piece  of  lead  to  keep  them  balanced  at  the 
bottom,  and  the  plates  can  be  covered  with  Lycopodium  or  any 
kind  of  graceful  moss.— D.  C. 
