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Much finer trees occur on the Continent than those in England; and it is evident that while the tree is healthy and hardy in this country, it requires hotter summers and colder winters to attain its best development and ripen fruit. A fine pair, male and female, stand in the old Botanic Garden of Geneva, where they were planted in 1815. They were measured by Elwes in 1905, when the male tree was 86 feet by 4 feet 10 inches, with a straight upright habit, the female, which bears good seed, was considerably smaller. A famous specimen in the garden adjoining the palace of the Grand Duke of Baden at Carlsruhe measured, in 1884, 84 feet, with a diameter of 25 inches at 3 feet from the ground. Beissner^[1] says trees occur in this garden of 25½ and 30 metres high, with stem diameters of 1.90 and 1.80 metres. The finest tree in Europe is probably one mentioned by Beissner,^[1] which stands in the Botanic Garden at Milan, and measures 40 metres high and 1.20 metre in diameter. There is also a noble specimen in the gardens of the Villa Carlotta on Lake Como. (A.H.)

 

1. Beissner, Nadelholzkunde, 1891, pp. 191, 192. One of the trees at Carlsruhe is figured in Gartenwelt, iv. 44, p. 520.