CONIFERS GROWN IN SUBURBAN GARDENS. 165
fir may always be recognised by its slender, pointed, bright brown
leaf buds. Its native land is the Rocky Mountains from British
Columbia south to Mexico, a region favoured by many noble
species of conifer. When I visited the city of Vancouver, in 1897,
the great saw-mills there were working day and night, cutting
up logs of Douglas fir. Outside the mills was a huge pile of
smouldering saw-dust, which, I was told, had been burning for
thirteen years, while overhead hung always a pall of smoke from
the forest fires made to clear the land for farming and building
purposes. Such reckless waste of a priceless inheritance has,
I believe, been checked of late years, and plans for reafforesta-
tion are being adopted. Douglas firs vary in height from low
dense bushes in high exposed situations to lofty giants of over
200 feet in the lower valleys.
Of the large genus Picea, the Spruces, we have but one species
commonly grown in our gardens and plantations, P. excelsa, the
European Spruce, not now a wild British tree, but in preglacial
times a native of East Anglia, as is proved by the characteristic
cones that have been found there. This is the "Christmas Tree"
of our childhood's delight. Spruces are distinguished from Silver
Firs by their drooping cones, which fall away as a whole, and by
the very prominent leaf-bases which roughen the branches after
the leaves have fallen. The Common Spruce, unlike the Silver
firs, is a shade-enduring tree; when thickly planted the lower
boughs do not die, and the leaves remain on the branches from
eight to thirteen years.
Pinus, the Pines, forms by far the largest genus of conifers.
It is well represented all round the northern hemisphere, and a
few species occur in the south also. Except in the youngest
seedlings the long needle-leaves are not scattered singly, as in the
previous genera, but are borne in groups of either two, three or
five, on very short side shoots, which eventually fall off as a whole.
The Scotch Fir, Pinus sylvestris, has needles in pairs, as has the
Corsican Pine, P. Laricio, and its varieties, the Austrian and
Pyrenean pines, all of which are not unfrequent in our gardens—
their much longer needles and the pyramidal shape of the trees
distinguish them from the Scotch Fir. Two other pines often
grown in this neighbourhood, Pinus Strobus, and P. excelsa,
both have needles in clusters of five. P. Strobus, the Weymouth
pine, or White Pine of Eastern Canada and New England, has