Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol04B.djvu/93

scattered through the forest of deciduous trees and attains a height of 100 feet or more, the largest that I measured being 105 feet high by 16 feet in girth, and 95 feet by 11 feet. Higher up the mountains it becomes mixed with Abies Veitchii and diminishes in size. Its range of distribution is not accurately known, for though Japanese botanists distinguish it from the other species, as Dake-momi, the foresters and woodmen, who call all silver firs momi, do not seem, so far as I could learn, to distinguish it from A. Veitchii and A. Mariesiz.

The date of introduction of this tree is not certainly known. Kent gives it as about 1870, and Mr. H.J. Veitch tells me that he believes that the first seeds were sent by Dr. Regel from St. Petersburg, but it was at first grown under other names.

It seems to thrive in most parts of England as well as or better than the other Japanese firs, but neither the trees I have planted, nor the seedlings I have raised from Japanese seed, will live long on the calcareous soil at Colesborne ; a moist climate in summer, and a deep sandy soil free from lime being apparently the most favourable conditions for its existence. At Kew it seems to grow faster than other firs.

At Pampisford, Cambridge, a narrow conical tree measured in 1907, 44 feet by 3 feet 6 inches. At Grayswood, Haslemere, a tree, obtained from Messrs. Veitch in 1882, measured in 1906, 41 feet by 3 feet 3 inches. Both these trees bear cones freely. A specimen at Bicton is about 47 feet high, and bore cones in 1902. There is a very thriving one on the lawn at Eridge Park, Kent, planted by the Duke of Manchester in 1885, which now measures 30 feet high by 3 feet. At Dropmore there is one which in 1908 was 32 by 2 feet. At Kew, where there are several thriving trees, this species first produced? cones in this country in 1887. At Pencarrow,’ a tree measured 4o feet by 3 feet 10 inches in 1907.

In Scotland we have seen no specimen of any size.°

Kent figures a handsome tree at Castlewellan, Co. Down, which was about 35 feet high and coning freely in 1907. Henry measured one at Fota, which was, in 1903, 40 feet in height and 2 feet 8 inches in girth. Another at Glasnevin was, in 1906, 38 feet by 2 feet 6 inches.

This species * is very hardy in eastern Massachusetts, U.S., where it has already produced cones. A tree in Mr. Hunnewell’s pinetum at Wellesley was 35 feet high in 1905. (H.J.E.)

1 Gard. Chron. ii. 248 (1887).

2 This tree is figured under the erroneous name of A. Veitchii, in Hortus Veitchii, plate opposite p. 83 (1906).

3 A. brachyphylla seems in every way adapted for cultivation in the north of Scotland, but too little is yet known of rate of growth to enable an opinion to be formed of its economic value,—(J.D. Crozier.)

4 Sargent, in Silva, N. Amer, xii. 102 adnot. (1898), and The Pinetum at Wellesley in 1905, p. 12.