but this character is variable, and I judged from the specimens shown me by Miss A. Eastwood, that the two forms cannot always be defined.
On the west slopes of Mount Shasta the tree occurs higher up than A, Lowiana, mixing with it at about 6000 feet, and at 8000 feet it is the only species of fir. It is not on Mount Shasta a very large tree, the biggest that ] measured being not much over 100 feet in height, and 15½ feet in girth, the average being 80 to 100 feet high, by 6 to 8 feet in girth. I could not see very much difference in the bark; though A. magnifica is known as the red, and A. Lowiana as the white fir, but the very much larger cones of the former distinguish it at once. These were borne only near the summit of the trees, and could only be procured by shooting them off with a rifle, or by felling trees on purpose. They were fully formed but un- ripe in the first week of September. The soil here was very rocky, and drier than that of any mountain which I have ascended in this latitude; and there was little herbaceous vegetation, though the snow is said to lie deep from November until May or June.
Introduction
This species was introduced in 1851 by John Jeffrey, who believed it to be A. amabilis; and the seedlings were distributed under this name amongst the members of the Scottish Oregon Association. The tree in Scotland is frequently labelled A. amadilis, in consequence of this error.
W. Lobb! sent seed in 1852, also under the name of A. amabilis; but later on the plants were found to differ from that species, and were distributed by Messrs. Veitch as A. nobilis robusta.
Remarkable Trees
Though it is quite possible that larger trees exist, which have been mistaken for A. nobilis, yet we have identified none in England which at all approach that species in size, and all the best we have seen are in the eastern and southern counties. The largest perhaps is one at Fulmodestone, Norfolk, a handsome and well-shaped tree growing in a damp soil and well sheltered situation, which in 1905 was 61 feet by 5 feet 9 inches, and bore cones near the summit.
At Bayfordbury, on a much drier soil, it has flourished better than 4. zodzézs, and in 1905 was 56 feet by 5 feet 9 inches (Plate 222). Mr. H. Clinton Baker recently measured a good specimen, 61 feet by 4 feet 4 inches, at Flitwick Manor; and another, 60 feet by 4 feet 9 inches at High Leigh, near Hoddesdon. At Grayswood, Haslemere, a tree planted as recently as 1881, measured in 1906 56 feet by 4 feet 11 inches; and at Petworth, in 1905, there was a slender and less vigorous tree 47 feet by 3 feet 1 inch.
At Eridge Park, Kent, a tree planted in 1880 by Count Gleichen was, in 1905, 34 feet by 33 feet.
In a pinetum close to Presteign, Radnorshire, planted about fifty years ago,
1 Hortus Veitchii, 336 (1906).
