The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland/Volume 1/Picea

by Henry John Elwes and Augustine Henry

 

PICEA

SPRUCE-FIRS

 

Picea, Link, Abhandl. Akad. Wiss. Berlin, 1827, 179 (1830); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. iii. 439 (1880); Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxx. 28 (1893).

Abies, Linnæus, Gen. Pl. 294 (in part) (1737); D. Don in Lambert, Pinus, vol. iii. (1837), ex Loudon, Arb. et Frut. iv. 2293 (1838).

 

This genus includes the spruce-firs, which in England, following the practice of Don and Loudon, are still often called Abies. However, all botanists in England, on the Continent, and in America apply the term Picea to the spruces, and Abies to the silver firs.

Tall evergreen trees belonging to the tribe Abietineæ of the order Coniferæ, with shoots of only one kind, bearing in spiral order peg-like projections ("pulvini"), from which the leaves arise singly. The needle-like leaves are either tetragonal or flattened in section, and persist for many years, rendering the foliage very dense. At the ends of the leading shoots there is a terminal bud, with 2–5 side buds directly under it; the buds are dry and not resinous.

Flowers monœcious. Male flowers solitary in the axils of the uppermost leaves, ovoid or cylindric, short-stalked, surrounded at the base with scale-like bracts, composed of numerous stamens spirally arranged, each with 2 pollen-sacs opening longitudinally, and a connective prolonged into a toothed crest. Pollen grains with 2 air-sacs. Female flowers solitary, terminal, erect, stalked, with a few empty scales at the base; composed of 2 series of scales, the bracts small and membranous, and the ovular scales bearing at their base 2 inverted ovules. Cones: generally becoming pendulous, but in certain species remaining erect or spreading; cylindrical or ovoid, with the bracts minute and concealed, and the scales enlarged and firm in texture, with entire or denticulate margins, and bearing on their inner surface 2 winged seeds. The cones are ripe in the first season, and after dispersal of the seed (the scales persisting on the axis) fall off in the following winter, or remain in some species much longer on the tree. The cotyledons are 5–15 in number, 3-sided, and serrate in margin.

Species of spruce occur in Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Siberia, Mongolia, China, Japan, the Himalayas, and in North America. The genus is marked out into two natural sections by the character of the leaves. These are defined by Willkomm as follows:—

1. Eu-picea.—True spruces. Needles 4-sided and 4-angIed, with stomata on all their surfaces. The ripe cones are always pendulous.

2. Omorica.—Flat-leaved spruces. Leaves 2-sided, flattened from above downwards, stomata being only borne on their dorsal surface. Ripe cones pendent, horizontal, or erect.

Other divisions have been made, such as that of Link into two sections, Genuinæ and Dehiscentes; and that of Mayr into three sections, Omorica (not identical with Willkomm's section of the same name), Morinda, and Casicta; but it is most convenient to adopt Willkomm's divisions.

The arrangement of the leaves on lateral branchlets is different in the two sections. All spruces agree in the disposition of the leaves arising from the upper side of such branchlets, as these always point forwards and cover the shoot. But, in ordinary species, the leaves underneath, while they part into two lateral groups, alter little their direction, which is more or less forwards; and the under part of the stem is laid only partially bare. In almost all the flat-leaved spruces, the leaves below part into two sets, which are directed outwards at right angles to the shoot, which is laid quite bare. This arrangement differs from that of the yew and most silver firs, where the leaves are divided into two sets both above and below; and this distinction depends on the fact that in these spruces the stomata are on the dorsal surface of the leaf, whereas in the yew, etc., they are on the ventral surface; and in the effort to direct the stomata away from the light, a different arrangement results in the two cases.

The arrangement of the leaves on leader or upright branchlets is the same in all species of spruce, being radial, the leaves pointing outwards and slightly forwards. In certain species, as P. Breweriana, P. Morinda, the lateral branchlets are pendulous and not horizontal; and the leaves then are similarly arranged in both the lateral and the leader shoots.

The section Eu-picea will be dealt with in a later part.^[1]

 

Key to Section Omorica.—The flat-leaved spruces are distinguished from the silver firs by the peg-like projections on the shoots, and from ordinary spruces by the flattened leaves with stomata only on their dorsal surface.

I. Young shoots glabrous, yellow.

1. Picea hondoensis. Central Japan.

Buds broadly conical, with scales rounded in the margin, opening red. Shoots of second year red. Leaves thin, slightly keeled on both surfaces, blunt or ending in a short point.

2. Picea ajanensis. Manchuria, Amurland, Saghalien, Yezo.

As in 1, but the buds open green, and shoots of the second year are yellow.

3. Picea sitchensis. Western North America.

Buds ovoid with ovate obtuse scales. Leaves deeply keeled on ventral green surface, almost convex on dorsal white surface, ending in very sharp, cartilaginous points.

4. Picea morindoides.^[2] Native country unknown.

Buds and scales ovate-obtuse. Leaves linear, straight, slender, acuminate, terminating in a callous sharp tip, somewhat flattened and distinctly keeled on both sides, marked with two white lines on the upper surface, and dark bluish green on the under surface. Leaves radially spreading on the branchlets.

 

II. Young shoots pubescent with short hairs.

5. Picea Omorika. Servia and Bosnia.

Pubescence brown. Buds ovate, conical, with outer scales ending in long subulate points. Leaves flattened but thick, obtuse or ending in a short point.

6. Picea Breweriana. Oregon, California.

Pubescence grey. Buds ovoid, with outer scales ending in long points. Leaves scarcely flattened, but convex above and below, keeled on dorsal surface, with midrib prominent on ventral green surface, and ending in a short point. The leaves spread out in all directions on the shoot.

 

 

PICEA OMORIKA, Servian Spruce

 

Picea Omorika, Bolle, Monatschrift des Vereines zur Beforderung des Gartenbaues, 124 (1877); Masters, Gard. Chron. 1884, xxi. 308, 309, Figs. 56, 57, 58, and 1897, xxi. 153, Fig. 44; Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxii. 203 (1886); Willkomm, Forstliche Flora, 99 (1897); Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 442 (1900); Richardson, Edin. Bot. Garden, Notes, No. i (1900); G. von Beck, Die Vegetationsverhältnisse der Illyrischen Länder, 286, 360, 440, 474 (1901).

Pinus Omorika, Pančic, Eine Neue Conifere in den Oestlichen Alpen, 4 (Belgrade, 1876); Masters, Gard. Chron. 1877, vii. 470, 620.

 

A tree with a tall, slender stem, said to attain 130 feet in height, with a girth of stem of only 4 feet, with short branches, forming a narrow pyramidal crown. The topmost branches are directed upwards, the middle ones are horizontally spreading, and the lower ones are pendulous, with their tips arching upwards. Bark brownish red, and scaling off in plates, the fragments often being heaped in quantity round the base of the tree. The leaves on vertical shoots stand out on all sides, but on horizontal shoots they point forwards on the upper side, being pseudo-distichous in three or four ranks on the lower side. They are flattened, 4-angled, straight, or curved to one side, ¾–1 inch long, linear, acute or obtuse with an apiculus, convex, and shining green on the ventral surface, marked with stomatic lines on each side of the prominent midrib of the dorsal surface.^[3] They persist for 4 or 5 years.

The buds, ovoid-conic with brown, membranous scales, the outermost of which end in long subulate points, are produced chiefly near the end of the shoot; and in unfolding, the uppermost scales are pushed off as a cap. The dark brown hairs, which are conspicuous on the young shoots, persist on the older branchlets of even 3 or 4 years' growth in wild specimens.

The male flowers, which are partly solitary and partly whorled, are stalked, ovoid-cylindric, bright red, ½–¾ inch long, and are surrounded at the base by numerous membranous bracts.

Cones, shortly-stalked 2–2½ inches long, bluish black when young, darkbrown when ripe, clustered, the upper ones being directed upwards, while the middle ones are horizontal, and the lower ones pendulous. Scales almost orbicular in outline, broad and convex, streaked on the outer surface, with the margin slightly bent inwards, undulate and denticulate. Bract obovate-cuneate, minute. Seeds small, ¹⁄₁₀–¹⁄₈ inch long, obovate, blackish brown, with a wing ⅓ inch long, obovate in outline.

 

Distribution

The Servian spruce was first made known to science by Pančic, who discovered it in south-western Servia, near the village of Zaovina, on 1st August 1875. Its area is a small one, occupying about 20 kilometres long by 15 kilometres wide on both sides of the Drina valley, the boundary between Servia and Bosnia. Here it occurs on limestone rocks at altitudes varying from 2700 to 5300 feet. It grows in small groves in the wetter places in the ravines, but it does not there reach such a height as it attains in the rockier parts of the mountains, where it forms part of the mixed forest of Austrian and common pines, common spruce, beech, and sycamore. Pure woods of Omorika occur at higher elevations, between 4700 and 5300 feet, where sub-alpine plants accompany it. Wettstein gives the following as the composition of the characteristic Omorika woods:—

 

Dominant Trees.—Picea Omorika, Pinus sylvestris, Carpinus duinensis, Picea excelsa, Fagus sylvatica, Populus tremula, Abies pectinata, Ostrya carpinifolia, Salix sp., Pinus austriaca.

Underwood.—Corylus avellana, Cotinus coggygria, Spiræa cana, with Rhamnus fallax and Lonicera alpigena at high altitudes.

Ground-herbage.—Aspidium Filix-mas, lobatum, and angulare.

 

Wettstein^[4] says than an Omorika forest has a peculiar and gloomy aspect, the slender stems with their short branches and columnar or spindle-shaped crowns looking quite different from any other type of European forest. In mixed forests, the straight single stems, arising out of the general mass of the other trees, are equally peculiar.

Omorika seedlings and young trees are only found in exposed rocky situations, and in the bottoms of wet shaded ravines. The tree in the wild state is strictly confined to limestone soil, and never grows on the slate formation which is found in parts of the Drina valley, yet when cultivated, it does very well, at least in youth, on soils which are not calcareous.

The largest tree^[5] recorded is one felled by Pančic, which measured 42.2 metres in height, and 0.385 metres in diameter. It showed 137 rings, and the width of the rings gradually diminished from 0.28 cm. in the 3rd decade to 0.04 cm. in the 14th decade. Pančic says that the tree has an inclination to grow with a spiral stem, and that it loses its branches up to about half its height, the largest of the branches being only about 2 metres in length. The cones are borne, according to him, upright on the topmost branches only, but elsewhere they hang down with their tips directed slightly upwards.

 

Pančic, in his first account of the tree, reports that he had heard on good authority of its occurrence in the mountains of Montenegro; it has since been 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 Höttingen near Innsbruck in the Tyrol. An allied species, Picea omorikoides, Webber,^[6] 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.^[7] 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 which I brought the smallest home in a tin box alive, and planted the larger ones in the forester's garden at Han Semec. Those which I brought home have established themselves slowly, but a quantity of seed received in the autumn germinated well in boxes, and in November 1905 was much larger than common spruce of the same age. They were quite uninjured by the severe frost of May 21, 1905, which injured the common spruce very severely, and on my limy soil are growing faster and more vigorously than any other species of Picea.

The tree appears to have been first distributed by Messrs. Fröbel of Zurich about 1884, and has been found quite hardy in England, as might be expected from the climate of its native country.

The finest specimen I know of in England is in the garden of W.H. Griffiths, Esq., at Campden, Gloucestershire, where it was bearing a good crop of cones near the summit in August 1905, and measured about 25 feet in height; this seems to show that the tree prefers limestone. At Kew there are three fine trees which were raised from seed obtained from Belgrade in 1889. These trees are now (1905) 13 inches in girth at 5 feet from the ground, and the tallest one is 23 feet high, making a strong, vigorous leading shoot, and assuming the very narrow pyramidal form which is so remarkable in the wild trees. The other two are 18 and 20 feet in height.

At Tortworth Court it has attained about 15 feet in height, and produced cones containing in the year 1902 apparently good seed; but Lord Ducie tells me that no plants raised from them can now be found. Though the tree is a very ornamental one I do not expect it can have any value as a forest tree in Great Britain, its timber having, so far as known, no special use. Judging from the soil and climate of its native country it should succeed in the Highlands of Scotland, especially on limestone soil, as well as, or better than in England, and as seedlings can now be procured in small numbers it will no doubt be planted by all lovers of coniferæ.(H.J.E.)

 

 

PICEA BREWERIANA, Brewer's Spruce

Picea Breweriana, Watson, Proc. Amer. Acad. xx. 378 (1885); Sargent, in Gardeners' Chronicle, xxv. 498, f. 93 (1886), and Silva N. America, xii. 51, t. 601 (1898); Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 430 (1900).

 

A tree, attaining 100–120 feet in height, with a stem 2 to 3 feet in diameter above Its enlarged base. Branches crowded to the ground, with slender, pendulous branchlets, which are often 7 to 8 feet in length and sparsely covered in their first and second seasons with greyish pubescence. Pulvini long and slender, directed forwards. Leaves often nearly an inch long, rounded on both surfaces, the dorsal surface keeled and bearing 10 to 12 rows of stomata, the ventral surface dark green, shining with a prominent midrib, apex obtuse or short pointed. The leaves, on account of the shoots being pendulous, are radially arranged (never pseudo-distichous), their apices pointing outwards and downwards.

Cones on short stalks (¼ inch), oblong-cylindrical, gradually narrowed from the middle to each end, 2½ to 5 inches long by ¾ to 1 inch wide; scales broadly obovate with entire rounded margins; bracts minute, concealed, oblong, with denticulate upper margin. Seed with long wing (three times the length of the seed itself). The cones are pendent, greenish, or purplish green when fully grown, becoming dull brown when ripe, and open to let out the seed in autumn, but generally remain on the branches till the winter of the following year.(A.H.)

 

This tree has a more limited range than any other spruce, being confined, so far as we know at present, to a few stations in northern California and southwestern Oregon, on the Siskiyou Mountains, where it was discovered at an elevation of about 7000 feet, in June 1884, by Mr. Thomas Howell, who directed me to the best place from which the locality can be approached, a settlement called Waldo, about 40 miles west of Grant's Pass station, on the Southern Pacific Railway.

I went to this station in August 1904 with the intention of visiting Waldo; but finding that Messrs. Jack and Rehder, of the Arnold Arboretum, had just returned, and hearing from them that there were no cones on the trees in that year, I did not feel inclined to spend three days on the trip. I am, however, much indebted to these able botanists for the following information, and especially to Mr. Rehder for a beautiful negative of the tree, which is here reproduced (Plate 29).

There seems to be only a small grove of the trees about 20 miles south of Waldo, over the Californian boundary, which is best reached by following the trail to Happy Camp, and turning west near the summit of the pass to a place called Big Meadows, which is four miles from the pass.

There is another place where it grows near Selma, which is more accessible than Big Meadows, and other localities are mentioned by Sargent, who says that Professor Brewer, after whom the tree was named, had previously, in 1863, found a tree which was probably the same species, on Black Butte to the north of Strawberry Valley, at the western base of Mount Shasta, where, however, it cannot now be rediscovered.

Another locality for Brewer's spruce was found in 1898, by Mr. F. Anderson, on an unnamed but conspicuous peak at the headwaters of Elk Creek, about two or three miles west of Marble Mountain and eighty miles west of Mount Shasta. The elevation of the peak is about 8000 feet, and several hundred specimens were found growing near the summit; the trunks were 16 to 20 inches in diameter at 3 feet from the ground, and there were plenty of cones on the tops of the trees which were about 80 feet high.^[8]

It grows on the Siskiyous in company with Pinus ponderosa, P. Lambertiana, and P. monticola, but usually gregariously in groves by itself. The soil and climate are dry, but there seems to be no special reason why this tree has proved in the eastern States of North America so difficult to cultivate; and as some of the conifers of the Pacific Coast which will not grow, or are not hardy in the eastern States, as, for instance, Abies bracteata and Picea sitchensis, thrive in England, and the trees with which it is associated in America are hardy and produce good seed here, we need not despair of seeing this beautiful tree established in the south of England.

The late Mr. R. Douglas, of Waukegan, Ill., visited Oregon in 1891 on purpose to obtain the seeds, and collected a large quantity of cones, from which several hundred thousand seedlings were grown. But those sown in America perished in their first and second years from causes which are not known, and attempts to raise the tree in the Arnold Arboretum have also failed.

Some of the seed, however, was raised by the late Baron von St. Paul Illaire at Fischbach in Silesia, which were alive in 1895;^[9] and small plants were reported in 1903 to be growing in the Royal Pomological Institute at Proskau in Silesia.^[10]

The late Mr. Johnson, of Astoria, Oregon, transplanted a few small trees to his nursery, some of which are, I believe, growing near Portland. Brandagee found a few two-year-old seedlings among the old trees, and half a dozen of them reached the Arnold Arboretum alive.

One of these was sent from there to Kew in November 1897, and is growing near the Pagoda, being about 2½ feet in height at the present time (March 1905). It is the only living specimen known to us in Britain.

The tree is said by Professor Sheldon to grow from 100 to 150 feet high, but Sargent gives 120 feet as the extreme height, and Messrs. Jack and Rehder did not see any higher than about 110 feet by about 9 feet in circumference. Douglas informed Baron von St. Paul that the largest tree measured by him was 121 feet high, and 2 feet 11 inches in diameter at 7½ feet from the ground. As the region in which it grows is so limited, and forest fires are very prevalent and destructive, it is to be feared that unless special measures are taken for its protection by the State of Oregon this very beautiful tree may become extinct.

The timber, which I only know from a specimen in the Jesup Collection of North American Woods, preserved in the American Museum of Natural History at New York, is said by Sargent to be considerably heavier than that of other American spruces, soft, close-grained, with a satiny surface, the sapwood hardly distinguishable. The specimen alluded to is 13¼ inches in diameter under the bark at 166 years old. (H.J.E.)

 

 

PICEA AJANENSIS, Ajan Spruce

 

Picea ajanensis, Fischer, ex Lindley and Gordon, Trans. Hort. Soc. v. 212 (1850), and in Middendorff, Reise, Florula Ochotensis, 87, tt. 22-24 (1856); Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xviii. 508 (1880), and Gard. Chron. 1880, xiii. 115, and xiv. 427, with figures; Mayr, Monograph der Abietineen des Jap. Reiches, 53, 102, t. iv. (1890); Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, (1900).

Picea ajanensis, var. microsperma, Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. (Bot.), xviii. 509 (1880).

Picea jezoensis, Carrière, Traité Gén. Conif. 255 (1855).

Abies ajanensis, Lindley and Gordon, loc. cit. (1850).^[11]

Abies jezoensis, Siebold et Zuccarini, Flora Japonica,^[12] ii. 19, t. 110 (ex parte) (1844); Veitch, Man. Coniferæ, ed. i, p. 72 (1881).

 

A tree, attaining in Yezo 100–150 feet in height. Bark like that of the common European spruce, grey, and composed of irregularly quadrangular scales which do not fall off. Branchlets shining, glabrous, yellow, never becoming reddish. Free part of the pulvini long, directed backwards on branchlets of old trees, not widened or channelled at their bases on the upper surface of the branchlets, persistent on old branchlets. Buds broadly conic, with ovate scales rounded in margin, showing on opening the young leaves tinged with red. Leaves flattened, thin, blunt, or ending in a short point, slightly keeled on both surfaces; ventral surface green without stomata; dorsal surface silvery white with two broad bands of stomata. Cones purple when young, brownish when ripe, straight, oblong, tapering at each end, 2 to 3 inches long by nearly 1 inch wide; scales narrowly oblong-oval, coriaceous, erose, and denticulate in margin; bracts minute, concealed, broad-oblong, slightly narrowed below, their upper rounded denticulate edge giving off abruptly an apiculus. Seed with a wing, which is twice or thrice as long as the seed itself.

 

Identification. (See Picea hondoensis.)

 

Distribution

Picea ajanensis appears to be confined to Manchuria, Amurland, that part of Eastern Siberia which faces the southern half of the Sea of Ochotsk, Saghalien, the three southern isles of the Kurile group, and Yezo. The spruce of Central China, which has been identified with it in Index Floræ Sinensis, ii. 553, has pubescent shoots, and is probably identical with Picea brachytila, Masters. The accounts of the Ajan spruce on the continent of Asia are of ancient date, the only recent one being that in Russian by Komarov,^[13] who states that it grows abundantly with species of Abies and Pinus koraiensis in mountain woods in all the provinces of Manchuria. It has not, however, been collected there by any British travellers. Farther north, according to Maximowicz,^[14] it extends throughout the territory of the lower Amur and the coast province facing the Sea of Ochotsk, reaching its northern limit in the interior in the Stanovoi mountains about latitude 55° 50', and on the coast at Ajan, lat. 56° 27'. Schmidt^[15] says that thick forests of Picea ajanensis occur in the lower Amur and in the coast territory. A mountain at 1000 feet in the Amgun valley was clothed with a thick mossy wood of this spruce, in the shadow of which snow still lay on the 30th May. On the crest of the Bureja range it occurs as a low prostrate shrub. It descends very seldom to the river banks. Middendorff also notes that it is confined to the hills on the coast of the Sea of Ochotsk. Occasionally it grows on swampy flats in Amurland.

Schmidt describes the bark as being moderately rough and divided into generally 6-angled plates, about an inch in diameter and ½ to 1 line in thickness; and that the form and colour of the leaves are very variable, their points being either acute or obtuse.

In the island of Saghalien, in its south-western part, there is a coniferous forest composed of Picea ajanensis and Abies sachalinensis, which clothes the slopes of the mountains up to 800 feet on the coast, and higher in the interior, where even the lofty crests are covered with dark forests of these two species.

In the Kurile Isles^[16] this species is confined to the three islands north of Yezo, namely Kunashiri, Shikotan, and Etorofu, reaching its northern limit in the last named. In Shikotan it forms with Abies sachalinensis a dense mixed forest, which in habit and height and cover of the ground strikingly resembles the coniferous forests at moderate elevations in Germany. The cones borne by the tree in this island are, however, small in size, and the tree itself does not attain its maximum dimensions.

In Yezo, Mayr reports that he has seen trees 130 feet in height, and considers reliable the reports of the Japanese foresters that it occasionally attains even 160–200 feet. It occurs in all the mountains of Yezo, only reaching the coast in the west of the island, where it is found in cold, marshy localities immediately behind the dunes, being only separated from the sea by a growth of Rosa rugosa and shrubby Quercus dentata. The important forests of it lie in the western and central mountains of Yezo, and also in the high ranges of Kitami, Kushiro, and Nemoro, where it forms mixed woods with the Saghalien silver fir and Picea Glehnii.

 

Introduction

We do not know that any plants of the continental Ajan spruce have been grown in Europe.

John Gould Veitch visited Hakodate in 1860, and sent home specimens and seeds of a weakly form of the Yezo Picea ajanensis, which was described by Lindley^[17] as a distinct species, Abies microsperma. Plants raised from the seed "turned out to be unsuitable for the climate of this country."^[18] This form, according to Mayr, and so far as I can judge myself, can hardly rank even as a variety, and is not in cultivation at the present time.

Maries^[19] visited Yezo in 1879 and sent home specimens, now preserved in the Kew Herbarium, and seeds of the true Picea ajanensis from that island; and young trees should accordingly be in cultivation in this country. This plant was kept separate by Messrs. Veitch at first, under the name Abies yezoensis. Maries considered the Yezo spruce to be quite distinct in habit and aspect from the two spruces which he had seen on Fujiyama (Alcockiana and hondoensis).

Mayr informed me last year that the Yezo spruce was not introduced into Europe until 1891; and that most of the trees on the Continent passing under the name of Picea ajanensis belong to Picea hondoensis. The specimens which have been sent me from old trees of reputed P. ajanensis in England also belong to that species.(A.H.)

On account of the heavy floods which occurred in July 1904, I did not get far enough north in Hokkaido to see this tree at its best, but in the State forests of Shari, Kutami, and Kushiro, it occurs in great masses, and is one of the principal economic products of the island. I saw it thinly scattered in forests of deciduous trees between Sapporo and Asahigawa, where it was of no great size, and in the forest round the volcanic crater-lake of Shikotsu in the south-east of Hokkaido it formed, here and there, nearly pure forests of small extent, mixed more or less with Picea Glehnii and Abies sachalinensis, at an elevation of 1000 to 2000 feet. The vegetation in these forests was quite unlike anything that I saw in Central Japan, the ground being covered with a dense layer of humus, and in the more shady places two or three species of Pyrola were abundant. Daphne, Gaultheria, Ledum, and other plants not seen elsewhere occurred, with curious terrestrial orchids and many ferns. The trees rarely exceeded 80 feet in height by 4 to 6 feet in girth, but higher up near the lake I measured one as much as 100 by 9 feet.

The general appearance of the tree is very like that of P. sitchensis, though I did not notice that the roots became buttressed, which is probably only the case in wet soil. The natural reproduction is good, but the seedlings grow slowly at first and seemed to thrive best in shade. The Japanese name is Eso-Matsu.

 

Timber

The wood of this tree is soft, but probably as good as that of other spruces. I passed the night at a factory in the forest where it was being cut up into thin slices for export to Osaka, where large quantities are used for making matchboxes. It is also employed for boat masts and other purposes, and is worth in Tokyo about 10d. per cubic foot. On account of its softness, lightness, and fineness of grain, it is largely used in Japan for chip-braid, a peculiar Japanese industry, which has lately attained considerable importance, the export for 1903 amounting to no less than 1,363,000 yen—equal to about £140,000. This braid is mainly used for making hats and bonnets, but it is also woven into floor-matting, and as shown at the St. Louis Exhibition is both ornamental and cheap.

There are many different varieties of chip-braid, some of which are dyed of different colours, and others are plaited with a mixture of silk. It is exported in bundles of 50 to 60 yards long and 1 to 1½ inches wide, and is valued according to quality at 1s. to 6s. per bundle. The best are made by mixing chips of Populus tremula and Picea ajanensis.(H.J.E.)

 

 

PICEA HONDOENSIS, Hondo Spruce

 

Picea hondoensis, Mayr, Monograph der Abietineen der Japanisches Reiches, 51, t. iv. fig. 9 (1890); Shirasawa, Iconographie des Essences Forestières du Japon, text 20, tab. v. figs. 1–22 (1900).

Picea ajanensis, Hooker, Bot. Mag. t. 6743 (1884), and of most writers.

Abies ajanensis, Fisch., var. japonica, Maximowicz, Iter secundum (1862).

 

A tree, attaining 80 feet in height in Hondo, the main island of Japan. Bark dark grey, peeling off in small roundish scales and leaving light-coloured spots on the trunk. Branchlets shining, glabrous, yellow in the first year; but becoming reddish brown in the second year, and retaining the red colour in succeeding years till the scaly bark begins to form. The free portions of the pulvini are directed forwards, and on the upper side of the branchlets are enlarged transversely at their bases and show two channels where they become decurrent on the stem; they are shorter than in Picea ajanensis, and on older branchlets tend to disappear. Buds like those of Picea ajanensis, but opening with greenish leaves. Leaves as in that species, but slightly shorter. Cones, red when young, yellowish when ripe, slightly curved, oblong, tapering to each end, about 2 inches long by ¾ inch thick, erect on terminal younger branchlets; scales membranous, oval, broader proportionately to their length than in P. ajanensis, with denticulate erose margins; bracts minute, concealed, oval lanceolate, denticulate, gradually tapering to an acute apex. Seed with a short wing (less than twice the length of the seed).

The description just given enumerates the characters, chiefly those of the bark, shoot, and cones, on which Mayr relies to distinguish the Hondo spruce from the true Picea ajanensis.

Picea hondoensis, as grown in this country, where it is usually called Picea ajanensis, assumes a broadly pyramidal outline, the main branches being rigid and directed either upwards or horizontally. In sunshine the branchlets turn their tips upwards, exposing to view the pale surface of the leaves. The arrangement of the leaves on lateral branchlets is the one normal in flat-leaved spruces, i.e. the upper side of the branchlet is densely covered with leaves, which have their apices directed forwards, while on the lower side of the branchlet the leaves part into two sets, directed outwards at right angles and leaving the twig bare beneath. All the leaves direct their stomatic pale surfaces away from the light, so that these look towards the ground.

The young cones are bright crimson, and make the tree highly ornamental in spring.

 

Identification

Picea Alcockiana, in which the leaves are conspicuously white on the dorsal surface, is often confounded in gardens with Picea hondoensis; but these two species are readily distinguished as follows:—

Picea hondoensis.—Leaves flat, with bands of stomata confined to the dorsal surface. On the lower surface of lateral branchlets the twig is bare, with the leaves directed outwards at right angles.

Picea Alcockiana.—Leaves quadrangular in section, with lines of stomata on the ventral surface, in addition to the bands of stomata on the dorsal surface. On the lower surface of lateral branchlets the twig is not quite bare, and the leaves are directed forwards at an acute angle.

Picea hondoensis, Picea ajanensis, and Picea sitchensis have been distinguished, so far as leaves and branchlets are concerned, in the key to Section Omorica. The cones of these three species are much alike. Those of Picea sitchensis, however, have scales oblong in outline, with their upper edge scarcely emarginate or erose; the bracts are large and visible between the scales towards the base of the cone. In the other two species the scales of the cones are oval with erose margins, while the bracts are minute, concealed, and differently shaped.

The cones of Picea Alcockiana differ considerably from those of the three preceding species. Their scales are rounded, being nearly semicircular in outline, with the upper edge almost entire or only minutely denticulate; and their outer surface is markedly striated.

 

Distribution

Picea hondoensis is confined to the central chain of mountains in the main island of Japan, occurring at altitudes above 4000 feet. Shirasawa (loc. cit.) mentions as localities, Fuji, Mitake, Novikura, Sirane to Nikko, Chokarsan to Ugo, etc.; and says that in the lower levels it is accompanied by Tsuga diversifolia, and ascends to 8000 feet in company with Abies Veitchii. Mayr states that on Fuji it is accompanied by Picea bicolor (Alcockiana), both occurring in mixed woods with Larix leptolepis and Abies Veitchii. Farther north, Picea polita joins the two spruces just named; and all three reach their northern limit in the high mountains of Iwashiro at 38° lat. Its southern limit is 35° lat.

Elwes saw very little of this tree in Japan, but near the top of the Wada-toge pass there were some small spruces growing at about 4500 feet elevation, which he believes to have been this species. Tohi is the Japanese name.

 

Introduction

Picea hondoensis was introduced in 1861 by John Gould Veitch. It was distributed as Abies Alcoquiana, an unfortunate circumstance, due to the fact that the seeds of the two spruces growing on Fujiyama (Picea hondoensis and Alcockiana) were both collected for Mr. Veitch by natives and were mixed together. Dr. Masters cleared up the question as to the distinctness of these two species in an article in the Gardeners' Chronicle,^[20] in which, however, he retained the name Picea ajanensis for the spruce, which Mayr afterwards separated as Picea hondoensis. If Mayr's view of the specific distinctness of Picea hondoensis and Picea ajanensis be upheld, most of the specimens cultivated in this country under the latter name (and many also incorrectly labelled Alcockiana) must be renamed as Picea hondoensis.

The best specimen we have seen in England is a tree at Hemsted in Kent, which was planted by the Earl of Cranbrook in 1887, and, when measured by Elwes in 1905, was 44 feet high.

There is one at Benmore, near Dunoon, the property of H.S. Younger, Esq., which Henry measured in 1905 as 52 feet by 4 feet 4 inches, about twenty-five years planted.

At Fota, Co. Cork, there is a fine tree which, in 1904, Henry found to be 44 feet by 4 feet 3 inches.(A.H.)

 

 

PICEA SITCHENSIS, Menzies' or Sitka Spruce^[21]

 

Picea sitchensis, Carrière, Traité Conifer. 260 (1855); Trautvetter et Meyer, in Middendorff, Reise Florula ochotensis, 87 (1856);^[22] Sargent, Silva N. America, xii. 55, t. 602 (1898); Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, 452 (1900).

Picea Menziesii, Carrière, Traité Conifer. 237 (1855); Masters, Gard. Chron. xxv. 728, figs. 161, 162 (1886).

Picea sitkaensis, Mayr, Wald. N. Amerika, 338 (1890).

Pinus sitchensis, Bongard, Vég. Sitcha, 46(1832).

Abies Menziesii, Lindley, Penny Cycl. i. 32 (1833); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iv. 2321 (1838).

Abies sitchensis, Lindley and Gordon, Jour. Hort. Soc. v. 212 (1850.)

 

A tree, sometimes exceeding 200 feet in height, with a trunk 4 to 20 feet in diameter, tapering above its enlarged and buttressed base; in Alaska dwindling to a low shrub. Bark with large, thin, red-brown scales. Branchlets yellow, shining, glabrous. Buds ovoid, acute at the apex, with ovate obtuse scales. Leaves arranged on lateral branchlets as in Picea ajanensis, ending in sharp cartilaginous points; deeply keeled on the ventral green surface, and almost convex on the dorsal surface, which has two white broad bands of stomata. The male catkins are solitary at or near the ends of the branchlets, and are of an orange reddish colour.

Cones: on short straight stalks, cylindrical-oval, blunt at the free end, 2½ to 4 inches long by 1 to 1½ inches wide, composed of oblong or oblong-oval scales, rounded towards the apex, denticulate and scarcely erose in margin; bracts lanceolate, denticulate, about half as long as the scales, and peeping out between them towards the base of the cone. The cones when ripe are yellow or brown, and generally fall off in the autumn and winter of the first year. Seeds, with a wing, three to four times as long as the seed itself.

The Sitka spruce seems to vary considerably over its wide area. There are specimens at Kew from the Columbia River, with pubescent young shoots, and bearing small cones which have oval, not oblong, scales, and minute almost orbicular bracts. Other specimens from Alaska have larger cones than usual, but with bracts shorter than usual, and the leaves are not so deeply keeled or so sharp-pointed as in the type.

Cultivated trees are generally broadly pyramidal in outline, and when old, often show the enlarged and buttressed base, so characteristic of wild trees; the roots sometimes extending superficially above the ground for several feet. The tree often produces on its lateral branches small erect shoots, on which the leaves spread radially in all directions. (A.H.)

 

Identification. (See Picea hondoensis)

 

Varieties

On the Continent, according both to Beissner^[23] and to the late Prof. Carl Hansen, whose "Pinetum Danicum," published in the Journal of the Royal Horticultural Society for 1892, is a valuable contribution to our literature, a variety (speciosa) occurs in cultivation, which is light blue in colour and very decorative. It differs from the ordinary form in being slower in growth and in having leaves, which are shorter, stiffer, and more sharply pointed.

 

Distribution

According to Sargent, this spruce extends farther north-west than any other North American conifer, being found in long. 151° west on the east end of Kadiak island, and all through the coast region of Alaska and British Columbia, west Washington and Oregon, and as far south as Caspar in Mendocino County, California.

In the north it is a small tree, sometimes only a bush, but on the coast of south-east Alaska is the largest and most abundant tree, and grows in company with the western hemlock. Here it attains over 100 feet in height, and ascends the mountains to about 3000 feet.

In the south of British Columbia it is larger in size, but in Vancouver's Island it did not seem common, and was not a conspicuous tree in the south-east parts of the island which I visited.

In Washington it grows to a very large size, and I measured one in swampy ground near a logging camp in the White River valley which was 23 feet in girth at 6 feet from the ground, and appeared to be 3 to 4 feet in diameter at the place where it was broken off at about 120 feet from the ground.

Prof Sheldon, in a pamphlet on The Forest Wealth of Oregon, calls it the largest tree in the state, growing 200 to 300 feet high, and has figured as the frontispiece of this paper what he calls the largest Tideland spruce in the world. This tree grew on the coast in God's Valley, on the North Nehalem River, Clatsop County, Oregon, and measured 30 feet 11½ inches in diameter at 2 feet from the ground, and 20 feet 4½ inches at 6 feet from the ground.

He states that it is distinctly a moisture-loving tree, and in the extensive coast belt forest which it forms is an ideal lumber tree, free from limbs for a great part of its height.

It is not mentioned as growing in the great forest reserve of the Cascade Range, and, according to Sheldon, extends southwards along the coast as far as Curry County. In northern California it grows on rich alluvial plains at the mouths of rivers, or in low valleys facing the ocean, where it is associated with Sequoia sempervirens and Abies grandis, and thus may be said to be almost strictly confined to a region where there is perennial moisture in the air, and an annual rainfall of 50 inches and upwards.

Sargent says its growth is very rapid, the leading shoots of young trees on Puget Sound being often 3 to 4 feet long.

John Muir measured a tree in Washington 180 feet high, at 240 years old, with a trunk 4 feet 6 inches diameter. Another near Vancouver, B.C., only 48 years old, had a trunk 3 feet in diameter.

In Alaska, Gorman measured two trees—one grown in a dense wood, well protected from wind, was 160 feet high, at 267 years old, with a diameter of 3 feet 11 inches; and the other on a hillside exposed to fierce north-east gales, was 4½ feet in diameter at 14 feet from the ground, and 434 years old. The heart of this tree was 32 inches from the south-west side, and only 16½ inches from the north-east side, showing the effect of prevalent winds on the production of branches and wood.

A tree measured by Muir at Wrangel, Alaska, was no less than 764 years old, with a trunk 5 feet in diameter, and this, I think, is the greatest age to which any recorded spruce has attained.

 

Introduction

Though discovered in Puget Sound in May 1792 by Archibald Menzies, who was surgeon and naturalist to Vancouver's expedition, it was not introduced to cultivation until 1831 by David Douglas, and was described by Lindley under the name of Abies Menziesi one year after Bongard had made it known to science under the specific name which we adopt. It is, however, still commonly known in Great Britain as Menzies' spruce, and his name it may well bear. According to Loudon, only a very few plants were raised in the Horticultural Society's Garden in the year 1832, of which some still survive.

The Oregon Association, which was formed a little later by a few Scottish arboriculturists for the purpose of introducing the conifers of the Pacific coast, and who sent out John Jeffrey as a collector about 1850, were fortunate in procuring a large quantity of seed, from which the pineta of Scotland and England have been stocked, and it has now become a common tree.

 

Cultivation

Though Menzies' spruce loves a wet climate, it loves a wet soil even more, and soon becomes unsightly and loses its foliage in dry localities. No conifer, except perhaps the Douglas fir, grows so rapidly where it has a suitable situation, and in some parts of Scotland it is now being planted experimentally as a forest tree.

It is easily raised, either from home-grown or imported seed, and is, like all spruces, slow of growth for the first few years, and requires at least five or six in the nursery before it is large enough to plant out.

At Durris, in Aberdeenshire, on the property of Mr. H.R. Baird, there is a plantation of Sitka spruce about 15 acres in extent, of which Mr. John Crozier, the forester in charge of the estate, gives us the following particulars in a letter dated 12th September 1904:—

"The plantation occurs at an altitude of 700 to 800 feet, the aspect being northerly, soil a sandy peat over boulder clay. The age of the plantation is twentyfive years; but there is no record either as to the number of the plants put out or the age when planted. They were, however, notched in, and their age would most probably be four years. They were planted rather irregularly, the distance varying from 6 to 9 feet, and both common spruce and Scots fir have been used to fill up between, to 3 feet between each plant. The average height of the Sitka trees is about 33 feet; and the girth at 5 feet taken at random is (where they had been planted 9 feet apart), 24 in., 22 in., 20 in., 25 in., 22 in., 22 in., 28 in., 22 in., 26 in., 25 in. The largest common spruces I could find on the same ground measured 9 in., 8 in., 11 in., 9 in., 11 in., 12 in., 16 in., 9 in., 10 in., 12 in., and their height was about 26 feet. I took the measurement of a hundred Sitkas over a track 20 feet broad, just as they came, and they averaged 22¾ in. Where the Sitkas had been planted at 6 feet apart, the common spruce and Scots fir are dominated, and the greater part of them quite dead. I drained some very wet parts a year ago, where both the Scots fir and common spruce had been killed through excess of moisture, but the Sitka had been very little harmed by it. Judging by what I have seen of the tree here and elsewhere, it will stand a greater degree of moisture than any other conifer I know. The plantation is altogether in a very healthy state."

A few hundred Menzies' spruces were planted out in 1879 on the mountain at Bronydd, on the property of Lord Penrhyn in North Wales, at 900 feet elevation; according to Mr. Richards, the forester, only half a dozen trees now survive, in a wretched condition. He states, however, that as the young growths come out late in the spring the tree is never touched by frost in North Wales. At Penrhyn there is a good specimen of the tree measuring 10 feet 6 inches in girth in 1904.

Menzies' spruce,^[24] on account of its sharp needles, has been supposed to be free from the attacks of deer, rabbits, and hares; but recent observations made in the royal domain of Freyr in Belgium show that out of 10,000 plants introduced some years ago only 2000 remain, and these are not expected to survive long. This is much to be regretted, as they had grown splendidly.

 

Remarkable Trees

One of the largest trees we know of in the south of England is at Highclere, Berks, the seat of the Earl of Carnarvon, where we measured a tree in August

1903 which was 96 feet by 12 feet. The tree, having lost its lower branches owing to a heavy snow-storm, has put out new branches down the trunk, a somewhat rare occurrence in large conifers. Another very fine tree is growing at Barton, Suffolk, which was planted in 1847, and when measured by Henry in 1904 was 99 feet by 9 feet 3 inches. Both of these are in a dry climate but in a good soil.

At Bicton, Devonshire, I measured a tree in 1902 which was 85 feet by 11 feet 6 inches; and at Boconnoc, Cornwall, the seat of J.B. Fortescue, Esq., a tree was recorded in 1891 as being 85 feet high by 12 feet in girth at the age of 48 years.^[25] In 1905 Elwes measured this and found it to be 86 by 15 feet.

At the same time* a tree growing at Howick Hall, Northumberland, the seat of Earl Grey, was 90 feet high at the age of 58 years.

At Beauport, Sussex, a tree measured in 1904 95 feet by 12 feet 10 inches. It has very wide-spreading superficial roots, one extending over the ground 16 feet in length. According to Sir Archibald Lamb, the tree five years ago was 12 feet 3 inches at 3 feet up, its present girth (1904) at that height being 13 feet 4 inches (Plate 30).

In Scotland the largest tree we know of, and probably the largest in Great Britain, is at Castle Menzies, said to have been 46 years old in October 1892, when its exact measurement was given by Mr. J. Ewing as 96½ feet high by 11 feet in girth. I measured it carefully in April 1904, and found it to be 110 feet high by 13 feet 2 inches. This tree is growing on the banks of a pond in good and damp soil, and has produced a greater amount of timber in a short time than any conifer I know in Scotland, except, perhaps, the Douglas fir, though Sequoia sempervirens may run it close in England. But spruce timber grown so fast is very soft, coarse, and knotty, close planting being essential to give the tree any economic value.

At Abercairney, Perthshire, there is a tree which was measured by Henry in August 1904, as 99 feet in height by 9 feet 9 inches in girth. This was 76 feet by 7 feet 5 inches in 1891.^[26]

At the Keillour Pinetum,^[27] in the same county, on boggy ground on a hillside, there is a remarkable Menzies' spruce, 86 feet in height by 15 feet 9 inches in girth. It has wide-spreading buttressed roots, and is branched to the ground. According to a MS. account in the possession of Col. Smythe of Methven Castle this tree was planted in 1834 or 1835. In this pinetum many species of conifers were planted in these two years, and owing to the wet, boggy nature of the soil some kinds have grown slowly, such as Picea nigra, Pinus Cembra, Abies balsamea, and Abies Pinsapo. Abies grandis has perhaps succeeded best, next to Picea sitchensis, which has produced an amount of timber far in excess of the other species. Abies grandis here is 90 feet by 7 feet 3 inches. A Picea alba, planted presumably at the same time, is only 52 feet by 5½ feet.

Mr. Crozier reports that there is a Menzies' spruce 13 or 14 feet in girth at Dunrobin in Sutherland.

At Murraythwaite, in Dumfriesshire, the seat of W. Murray, Esq., a tree 78 feet by 8 feet 10 inches, planted about the year 1855, is growing near a pond, and is a fine healthy specimen, broadly pyramidal, and feathered to the ground.

A tree^[28] at Keir, near Dunblane, measured, in 1905, 82 feet by 9 feet 10 inches. At Smeaton Hepburn, Haddington, the seat of Sir Archibald Buchan Hepburn, Bart., where there is a remarkably varied collection of trees, a fine Menzies' spruce measured, in 1905, 88 feet by 10 feet 7 inches. A very large tree is reported to be growing in the grounds of Major Ross at Kilroch, Nairnshire.

In Ireland the finest example that we know is at Curraghmore, Waterford, the seat of the Marquess of Waterford. Mr. Crombie writes that it is now (March 1905) 106 feet in height, with a girth of 12 feet at 5 feet from the ground. This tree was reported^[29] in 1891 to be 110 feet high (evidently an estimate) with a girth of 10 feet.

At Mount Shannon, Co. Limerick, there is growing a very vigorous tree, with branches to the ground, which in 1905 was 79 feet by 12 feet.

A tree at Clonbrock, Co. Galway, planted in 1881 and growing in boggy soil, was in 1904 56 feet high by 4 feet 8 inches in girth.

 

Timber

The wood is said by Sargent to be light, soft, and straight grained, not strong, with a satiny surface, and thick, nearly white, sapwood.

It is largely used on Puget Sound for purposes where cheap lumber is required, but I did not see it in the timber yards that I visited in Tacoma.

Leislett does not mention it in his work, but Stone, quoting Macoun, says that it is elastic, bends with the grain without splitting, and is much used in boatbuilding, for light oars, staves, doors, and window-sashes, resists decay for a long time, and is not attacked by insects.

I am informed by Mr. Rogers, one of the principal timber buyers for the Admiralty, that no other spruce makes such good light oars, and that in consequence it is now imported annually for that purpose.(H.J.E.)

 

1. In vol. 6 (Wikisource-ed.)
2. A new species described by Rehder in Sargent, Trees and Shrubs, 95, t. 48 (1903). It is only known as a tree growing in the arboretum of G. Allard at Angers. I have seen no specimens and take the characters given above from Rehder. In habit it resembles Picea Morinda, the branches being pendulous. The cones resemble those of Picea Alcockiana.
3. On horizontal shoots, the leaves, by twisting movements on their bases, are inverted, so that the green surface is turned upwards and the stomatic surface downwards.
4. Sitzungsber. kais. Akad. d. Wiss., xcix. 503; Oesterr. Bot. Zeitschr. 1890, p. 357.
5. Letter of Pančic, quoted in Stein's article on "Omorika" in Gartenflora, 1887, p. 14.
6. Engler's Bot. Jahrb. xxiv. 1898, Heft 4, 510, 504.
7. Cf. Met. Beob. Land Stationen in Bosnien (1899).
8. Erythea, vi. 12 (1898), and vii. 176 (1899).
9. Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges. 1895, p. 42.
10. Ibid. 1903, p. 77.
11. Named as Abies ajonensis in: Lindley and Gordon (1850)—'A Catalogue of Coniferous Plants, with their Synonyms,' in: The Journal of the Horticultural Society of London, vol. 5, p. 212 (Wikisource-ed.)
12. The figures given by Siebold represent (1) a flowering twig which came from a garden in Tokyo, and was probably, according to Mayr, Picea hondoensis; and (2) a branch with cones, copied from a Japanese drawing of Picea ajanensis from Yezo. The description applies to two species, and the name jezoensis cannot stand. The synonymy is very involved, but, accepting Mayr's view, the facts are clear enough. The Hondo spruce was first distinguished clearly by Mayr, and therefore receives his name Picea hondoensis. The Yezo and Amurland spruces are the same species, and receive the name Picea ajanensis, first given by Fischer.
13. Komarov, Flora Manshuriæ, i. 200 (1901).
14. Maximowicz, Primitiæ Floræ Amurensis, 261, 392 (1859). See also Regel, Tentamen Floræ Ussuriensis, 136 (1861).
15. Schmidt, "Reisen in Amurland und Saghalien," in Mém. Acad. Imp. Sc. St. Petersburg, VII. series, xii. No. 2, pp. 15, 20, 63, 98 (1868).
16. Mayr, loc. cit. p. 102.
17. Gard. Chron. 1861, p. 22. This is Picea ajanensis, var. microsperma, Masters, Gard. Chron. 1880, i. 115.
18. Kent, in Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, loc. cit.
19. See Veitch's Man. Coniferæ, ed. i. p. 72 (1881).
20. Gard. Chron. 1880, i. 115, and ii. 427.
21. Called also Tideland spruce on the Pacific coast.
22. Trautvetter and Meyer are often cited as the authors of the name Picea sitchensis; but the correct date of their publication is later than that of Carrière's. See Trautvetter, Flora Rossicæ Fontes, 303 (1880).
23. Nadelholzkunde, 392 (1901).
24. Bull. Soc. Cent. Forest. Belgique, April 1901.
25. Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. 1892, xiv. 486, 493.
26. Ibid. 1892, xiv. 527.
27. Visited by Henry in August 1904.
28. This tree was reported in 1891 to be 61 feet by 7 feet 3 inches, and was then forty years old, Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. (1892) xiv. 531.
29. Jour. Roy. Hort. Soc. (1892), xiv. 562.