1855, and that some had withstood the severe winter of 1854-5 without protection, though others were killed, a difference which he attributes to some of the seed having been gathered from trees which grew at 8000 and some from trees at nearly 13,000 feet. Hooker! further states that hundreds of plants were raised and widely dis- tributed by Kew, but in every case these succumbed in a few years to virulent attacks of Coccus laricis. As the climate of the Chumbi valley is much drier than that of Sikkim, it is quite possible that seed from that locality would give better results; but I have never been able to keep the tree alive at Colesborne for long, as it suffers from the dry climate, and seems to object to lime in the soil. Mr. Barrie, forester to the Hon. Mark Rolle, has been very successful in growing this tree from English-grown seed, and has sent me healthy young plants of it; but the seedlings I have raised at Colesborne both from imported and home-grown seed have always died, though protected by a frame.
Remarkable Trees
The largest specimen of the Sikkim larch we know of in this country is one at Coldrinick, near Menheniot, Cornwall, the seat of Major-Gen. Jago-Trelawney. I have not seen this tree, but the gardener, Mr. Skin, informs me that in 1905 it measured no less than 57 feet by 4 feet 6 inches in girth. It has very spreading branches, the width from point to point of the lowermost branches being 43 feet. The cones were admirably figured in the Gardeners’ Chronicle,” and have produced fertile seed. The seedlings require careful treatment, as they easily “damp off.”
A tree of the original introduction is growing at Strete Raleigh, Devonshire, the seat of H. M. Imbert Terry, Esg., who showed it to me in 1903, when it measured 40 feet high by 4 feet in girth. It is growing on poorish soil at a considerable elevation, where it is a good deal exposed to the damp south-west winds, and perhaps in consequence of this has thriven very well, and has borne fertile seed for some years past (Plate 109).
Another much smaller tree, which also bears cones, is growing at Leonardslee in Sussex. There is also an old tree at Pencarrow, in Cornwall, which in 1905 was only 12 feet high by 15 inches in girth, stunted and covered with lichen. It also bears cones.
Dr. Masters * received flowering specimens in 1896 from The Frythe, Welwyn, Herts; but the tree from which they were obtained could not be found when Henry visited this place in 1906. (H.J.E.)
1 Gard. Chron., loc. cit.
After this was printed a good illustration of the tree appeared in the same journal on 2nd March 1907, which shows that it is not only larger, but a better shaped tree than the one I have figured.
3 Gard. Chron. xxvii. 296 (1900)
