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deciduous with it, terminating in linear, rigid spines, 1 to 2 inches long, which in the upper half of the cone point towards its apex, and in the lower half are spreading and often recurved. Seeds dark reddish-brown, about 2 inch long and nearly as long as their pale reddish-brown shining wings. (A.H.)

Abies bracteata has perhaps the most restricted distribution of all the silver firs, as, according to Sargent, it only occurs in a few isolated groves along the moist bottoms of cafions at about 3000 feet elevation on both slopes of the western ridge of the Santa Lucia Mountains in Monterey County, California. The most northerly point where it is now known to grow is in Bear Cafion, twenty-five miles south of the Los Burros mines; the other localities mentioned by Sargent are in the San Miguel Cafion and in a gorge at the head of the Nacimiento river.

The discovery of this tree is assigned by Don, Sir W.J. Hooker,’ and Sargent to Dr. T. Coulter, who, according to a letter? of Douglas to Hooker dated November 23, 1831, arrived at Monterey after he began the letter in question. Douglas also, in a letter® dated October 1832, states* that he found the tree, which he called Pinus venusta, in the preceding March “on the high mountains of Cali- fornia,” and that it is never seen at a lower elevation than 6000 feet above sea-level, in lat. 36°, where it is not uncommon.

But Kent says,” in a note, that a comparison of the dates shows that Douglas was the first discoverer, which, however, is not proved; as, according to Douglas’s own showing, Coulter was at Monterey, near to the place where the tree grows, three months before Douglas found the tree himself. Prof. Hansen ® also has incorrectly stated the date of Douglas’s discovery of this tree as March 1831 instead of March 1832,

William Lobb, when collecting for Messrs. Veitch in 1853, introduced it to cultivation, and in a letter in Gardeners’ Chronicle, 1853, p. 435, describes it as “the most conspicuous ornament of the arborescent vegetation. On the western slopes, towards the sea, it occupies the deep ravines, and attains the height of from 120 to 150 feet, and from 1 to 2 feet in diameter, the trunk as straight as an arrow, the lower branches decumbent. The branches above are numerous, short, and thickly set, forming a long tapering pyramid or spire, which gives to the tree that peculiar appearance not seen in any other kind of the Pinus tribe. Along the summit of the central ridges, and about the highest peaks, in the most exposed and coldest places imaginable, where no other pine makes its appearance, it stands the severity of the climate without the slightest perceptible injury, growing in slaty rubbish, which to all appearance is incapable of supporting vegetation. In such situations it becomes stunted and bushy. The cones are quite as singular as the growth of the tree is beautiful ; when fully developed the scales, as well as

1 Bot. Mag. t. 4740 (1853).

2 Comp. Bot. Mag. ii. p. 149.

8 Jbid. 151.

4 Ibid. 152.

5 Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 497, note (1900).

6 Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 459 (1892).