Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/65

59 feet by 9 feet 8 inches. Around it were several natural seedlings, from 1 foot to 5 feet in height. At Smeaton-Hepburn another measured, in 1905, 53 feet high by 10 feet in girth. A number of Cephalonian firs were planted at Blairadam, the seat of Sir Charles Adam, Bart., in Kinross-shire, by his ancestor Sir Frederick Adam, who was governor of the Ionian Islands in 1824, and who was censured by General Napier for not sufficiently protecting the forests in Cephalonia. Several of these trees still survive at Blairadam, the largest in the garden near the entrance gate being 49 feet high, and 8 feet 2 inches in girth at 4 feet. It divides into several stems at about 25 feet. Another measures 42 by 5½ feet, and there are several smaller ones, but the tops in most cases have been at various times injured by wind and frost. In other parts of Scotland the tree grows fairly well, but not so fast as in the south, the best I have heard of being at Abercairney, where Mr. Bean’ records one 75 feet high in 1906. As this, however, was in 1892 only reported as 50 feet high there may be a mistake. Other good trees are growing at Whittingehame, East Lothian, at Haddo House, Aberdeenshire, and at Ochtertyre,’ Perthshire.

In Ireland, the largest Cephalonian Fir known to us, is growing at Adare Manor, Co. Limerick, the seat of the Earl of Dunraven; and, in 1903, was 86 feet high by 9 feet 4 inches in girth.

At Powerscourt, Co. Wicklow, a tree measured, in 1903, 55 feet by 8 feet 9 inches; and at Hamwood, Co. Meath, there is a fair specimen which in 1904 was 50 feet by 9 feet 6 inches.

At Cahir Park, Co. Tipperary, there are four trees of nearly equal size, one measuring 46 feet by 6 feet 2 inches. Specimens sent in 1906 by Mr. Austin Mackenzie show that these trees belong to var. Apollinis.

In the Botanic Garden at Bergielund, near Stockholm, a tree, planted in 1890, was, when seen by Henry in August 1908, 30 feet in height and 1 foot in diameter, and exceeds in rapidity of growth all the other conifers in the garden. In the Botanic Garden, at Christiania, there is a tree, about 25 feet in height, which is, however, not quite hardy, being slightly browned by frost. Hansen” says that this species had attained in 1891 a height of 44 feet and a girth of 6 feet, at 4o years old, in the gardens at Carlsberg, near Copenhagen.

A. cephalonica has proved hardy* in eastern Massachusetts, where it has already borne cones.

Though General Napier stated that the wood of this tree in Cephalonia is very hard and durable, yet as grown in this country it is not likely to have any economic value, as it is too knotty and coarse for any but the commonest purposes. (H.J.E.)

1 Kew Bulletin, 1906, pp. 266, 267.

2 Journ. Roy. Hort. Soc. xiv. 463 (1892).

3 Sargent, Silva N. Amer. xii, 99, adnot. (1898). Sargent, however, states in his account of the Pinetum at Wellesley in 1905, p. 12, that the tree here, which is 51 feet by 6 feet, was considerably injured in the severe winter of 1903–4.