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now the property of Mr. J.H. Wall, I saw a good specimen of Abies magnifica in 1906, which measured 53 feet by 5 feet 7 inches.

The largest reported’ at the Conifer Conference in 1891 was at Revesby Abbey, Lincolnshire, and then measured only 40 feet by 5 feet.

In Scotland it is more numerous and larger. The late Malcolm Dunn, who had an exceptionally wide experience in the cultivation of conifers in Great Britain, wrote of it as follows in a paper® which he sent to the Conifer Conference:—“Tt is in truth a stately tree and one of the handsomest of all the taller-growing conifers for ornamental purposes. It is one of the very hardiest of the firs, and is seldom affected by spring frost, and the timber being straight, clean-grained, and of good quality, it will no doubt be a useful forest tree.” But this latter opinion has not so far received any proof so far as we know, for the tree is, and seems likely to remain, difficult to obtain, and like most of its congeners is slow and costly to raise from seed.

Probably the finest trees in Scotland are one at Durris,* Aberdeenshire, which was, in 1904, 80 feet high by 6 feet 6 inches in girth, and when I measured it in 1907 had increased to about 85 feet; and another (Plate 223) at Bonskeid, near Pitlochry, of which Mr. J. Forgan has been good enough to send me a photograph, and which measured, in 1908, 87 feet by 8 feet. When he first knew it thirty-five years ago it was about 12 feet high; it has not produced cones. Mr. Bean‘ noticed in 1906 a tree at Abercairney 70 feet high, and another at Blair Castle 60 feet high.

At Farthingbank, Drumlanrig, there is, growing on clay loam at 650 feet above sea-level, a tree 50 feet by 5 feet 3 inches in 1905, which was planted, according to Mr. Menzies, the forester, thirty-one years previously.

The tree is rare in Ireland, but there is a specimen® at Castlewellan, which was 47 feet by 6 feet in 1906; and at Powerscourt, a tree, planted thirty-five years ago, was 57 feet by 6 feet 8 inches in 1906, and is said to bear cones nearly every year. (H.J.E.)

1 Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 568 (1892).

2 Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 83 (1892).

3 A. magnifica closely resembles A. nobilis, but in strong contrast as regards seed-bearing. It does not seem as if the tree is likely to become acclimatised in this respect as, although planted in considerable numbers throughout the policy grounds and plantations, and most of those trees now between fifty and sixty years of age, cones have been produced only on one occasion, and that on only a few trees. The timber when closely grown is closer in texture, richer in colour, and better in quality than A. nobilis. Like that species it is impatient of side shade and sheds its branches freely. Constitutionally it is less robust than its near relative, and also less accommodating in its demands on site and soil.—(J.D. Crozier.)

4 Kew Bulletin, 1906, pp. 264, 267.

5 Figured in Garden, June 28, 1890, p. 591.