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The tree is rare in cultivation in England. There are two or three young specimens at Kew; and Kent, writing in 1900, mentions small trees, about 20 feet high, growing at Bicton, and Streatham Hall in Devonshire.
At Pampisford, Cambridgeshire, there are two trees with fine healthy foliage, the larger of which, 37 feet high and 3 feet 2 inches in girth, bore cones in 1907. There is also a specimen at Highnam 35 feet by 3 feet 2 inches. Though we have not identified any specimens in Scotland Mr. Crozier speaks of it as a handsome and free-growing tree which bore cones in 1906 and seems quite at home at Durris.
In Ireland the finest we know of is at Fota, where a tree 39 feet by 6 feet was bearing cones in 1908. Lord Barrymore informs us that it was planted in 1878. There is a good specimen at Glasnevin, 38 feet by 3 feet 7 inches in 1906; and one at Castlewellan measured, in the same year, 25 feet by 3 feet.
At Verriéres' near Paris, two trees, dating from the original introduction in 1862, were, in 1905, 46 feet in height by 4 feet 3 inches in girth. (H.J.E.)
ABIES CEPHALONICA, Greek Fir
- Abies cephalonica, Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2325 (1838); Masters, Gard. Chron. xxii. 592, f. 105 (1884); Kent, Veitch’s Man. Coniferæ, 498 (1900); Halácsy, Consp. Fl. Græcæ, iii. 450 (1904).
- Abies Apollinis, Link, Linnæa, xv. 528 (1841).
- Abies Reginæ Amaliæ, Heldreich, Gartenflora, ix. 313 (1860).
- Abies Panachaica, Heldreich, Gartenflora, x. 286 (1861).
- Picea cephalonica, Loudon, Gard. Mag. xv. 238 (1839).
- Pinus cephalonica, Endlicher, Cat. Hort. Vindob. i, 218 (1842).
A tree attaining about 100 feet in height. Bark greyish brown, smooth in young trees, in old trees fissuring into small oblong plates. Buds conical or ovoid, obtuse at the apex, composed of thick ovate acute keeled scales, with prominent tips, and covered with a layer of resin. Young shoots smooth, light brown, shining, glabrous.
Leaves on lateral branches radially arranged, but not so regularly as in A, Pinsapo, their apices pointing outwards and slightly forwards, those of the upper ranks shorter than those beneath. Leaves linear, flattened, curved, about 1 inch long, 1⁄16 to 1⁄12 inch broad, abruptly tapering at the base, narrowing gradually in the anterior two-thirds, and ending in a long cartilaginous point; upper surface dark green, shining, with the median furrow not continued to the apex, and usually with several broken lines of stomata; lower surface with two white bands of stomata, each of seven or eight lines; resin-canals marginal. Leaves on cone - bearing branches all upturned, curved, rigid, broad, with the apex simply acute and not prolonged into a fine cartilaginous point.
Cones, on short stout stalks, about 6 inches long by 11⁄2 inch in diameter, cylindrical, slightly tapering at both ends, brownish, with the bracts golden brown, exposed, and reflexed. Scales: lamina narrowly fan-shaped, almost triangular;
1 Hortus Vilmorinianus, 69, pl. 1 (1906).