reported to occur also at Bellova in the Rhodope mountains in Bulgaria; but, so far as we can discover, these statements have not been confirmed, A fossil species which has been identified with the existing tree by Webber has been found in the interglacial deposits at Hottingen near Innsbruck in the Tyrol. An allied species, Picea omorikoides, Webber,[1] has been found at Aue in Saxony in a preglacial deposit which is of the same age as the Cromer forest bed on the coast of Norfolk. Lokowitz has also found near Mulhouse in Alsace some remains of a spruce in the middle Oligocene beds which resembles Picea Omorika.
In the herbarium at Kew there are specimens collected by V. Crucic on the Drina, and others with good cones gathered by Elwes at 2000 to 3000 feet altitude. (A.H.)
I visited the valley of the Drina in Bosnia in 1900 on purpose to see this tree, and after driving a long day east from Sarajevo, reached Rogatica, from where Herr Gschwind, the obliging forest officer of the district, was good enough to accompany me to Han Semec, a Gendarmerie station on the road to Visegrad, about 15 miles from Rogatica. Han Semec is at an elevation of 3800 feet, and is surrounded by beautiful forests of Austrian and Scots pines, spruce, silver fir, and beech.
The climate of the district is very cold in winter and warm in summer. The minimum temperature being —33° Reaumur on 23rd December, + 30°, the maximum on 7th July 1897, the snow lying as long as 4–5 months.[2] The rainfall in summer is heavy, amounting to 116.2 centimetres, which fell on 124 days, and the weather was wet most of the time I was there.
After passing through some beautiful mountain meadows and primæval forest of large spruce and silver fir mixed in places with beech and aspen, as well as small oaks and large birch, we came to the edge of a deep rocky ravine running down to the Drina valley. On the steep limestone cliffs overhanging this ravine, which are a favourite haunt of chamois, Picea Omorika was growing in clumps, and isolated trees occurred among common spruce, Scots and Austrian pine.
The branches are short and drooping as compared with those of common spruce, and the cones being found only near the top of the tree, we had to cut one down in order to procure fruiting specimens; on this I found young cones of the year, cones of last year which had not yet opened, and which, according to the forester, contained good seed only when there was turpentine exuding from them, and old cones which hang two or three years on the tree after shedding their seed. In habit and appearance the tree resembles the American Picea alba more than any tree I know, though its nearest botanical affinities are with P. sitchensis and P. ajanensis. Plate 28, which is from two of several photographs kindly sent me by Herr Othmar Reiser of the Landesmuseum, Serajevo, Bosnia, gives an excellent idea of the forest and of individual trees.
The average size of the full-grown trees on these steep cliffs was not above 50-60 feet, with about 1 foot of diameter, but I found some measuring 80-90 feet high and 18 inches diameter. Young seedlings were scarce and difficult to find on the mossy rocks; but we collected 20 or 30 plants, of
