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branchlets smooth, brown, covered with moderately dense, short, erect pubescence, retained on the older branchlets, the bark of which becomes slightly fissured.

Leaves on lateral branches arranged almost as in A. Nordmanniana; those on the under side of the branchlet pectinate ; those on the upper side shorter and covering the branchlet, the median ones pointing upwards and forwards, and not appressed so much as in A. Nordmanniana. Leaves, about 4 to 1 inch long, 4 inch wide, linear, flattened, gradually tapering to the base, uniform in width in the anterior half, with a truncate bifid apex ; upper surface dark green, shining, with a continuous median groove and without stomata; lower surface with two conspicuously white, broad bands of stomata, in nine to ten lines; resin-canals median. On cone - bearing branches, the leaves are more crowded, and less plainly pectinate below, than is the case in barren branches.

Staminate flowers’ ¼ inch long on a stalk of the same length; anthers stalked, connective developed into a saddle-shaped flap, from the back of which projects a horizontal or deflexed spur-like process.

Cones sessile or sub-sessile, cylindrical, flattened at the apex, 2 to 2½ inches long, ¾ to 1 inch in diameter, bluish before ripening, brown when mature. Scales small; lamina ⅝ inch wide, ⅜ inch long, crescentic, with two lateral denticulate wings, which are separated from the narrow obcuneate base by rounded deep sinuses. Bract as long as the scale, obcuneate below, dilated above into a two- winged denticulate lamina, ending in a short mucro, slightly exserted and reflexed. Seed-wing very broad and short, scarcely the length of the body of the seed; seed with wing about ⅝ inch long.

Mayr distinguishes two forms of cones:—

1. Var. typica. Cones large, about 2½ inches long; bracts exserted and reflexed.

2. Var. Nikkoensis. Cones small, 2 inches long ; bracts scarcely visible, their fine points projecting only slightly between the scales.

Abies nephrolepis, Maximowicz,’ has been united with Abies Veitchii by Masters, and is perhaps a geographical form of the latter species, occurring in Amurland. According to Maximowicz it differs in the leaves of cone-bearing branchlets being sometimes acute and not bifid, and in the smaller ovoid-cylindrical cones, the scales of which are longer than the bracts and less in size than those of the Japanese tree. This Manchurian tree has not apparently been introduced into cultivation and is still imperfectly known.

Abies Eichleri, Lauche, was supposed to have been raised from seeds sent from Tiflis to Potsdam; and was considered to be a new species from the Caucasus. Some error, however, had arisen, as the plants turned out to be identical with Adzes Vertchi2.

Abies Veitchii has been collected according to Beissner*® by Pére Giraldi at

1 Masters, loc. cit.

2 Mél. Biol, vi, 22 (1866).

3 See Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxvi. 557 (1902).