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Rh rarely ½ inch in diameter, globose, orange coloured, smooth, hard, glandular on the surface.

Arbutus Andrachne is a small tree or large shrub, resembling A. Unedo in habit, and like it occurring often in heaths and occasionally in the forests ; and only rarely forming small pure woods. It occurs in Albania, Greece, Cephalonia in the Ionian Islands, Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, in the maritime regions of Asia Minor, Syria, and Palestine, in the Crimea and in the district of the Caucasus bordering upon the Black Sea.

It was introduced into England from Smyrna in 1724, and cultivated at Eltham by Dr. Sherard.

This tree though rarely planted in modern gardens’ is, on account of its superior hardiness and its extremely beautiful bark, a more ornamental tree than the native species. Though I have never seen or heard of its producing ripe fruit in England, seedlings may be obtained from Continental nurseries, and some that I brought from Pallanza, in October 1906, have survived the journey without injury. The tree seems to enjoy lime in the soil. The bark is like smooth reddish-brown leather, covered with a thin silvery paper-like skin which peels off annually, and for this alone it is well worth growing. There was a very fine though not tall tree of this species on the lawn at Williamstrip Park, Gloucestershire, on rather heavy soil, which endured the inclement season and severe winters of 1879-80-81 without much injury, but is now dead. I saw in 1903 another which was 36 feet high and 4 feet in girth lying on the ground at Haldon near Exeter, which had been blown down some years before but was still living. The best that I know now living is in the Botanic Garden at Bath, and measures 27 feet by 6 feet 3 inches at 1 foot from the ground, shortly above which it divides into several stems. There is also a handsome tree about 25 feet high at Westonbirt, and one at Mamhead, 30 feet high, which is decaying at the butt.

A tree attaining in America 100 feet in height and 20 feet in girth, but usually much smaller. Bark of branches and young stems thin, smooth, reddish, peeling off in large thin scales; of older trunks dark reddish brown and covered with small thick scales. Young branchlets glabrous; older branchlets reddish brown, smooth. Buds stouter than in A. Unedo, ⅓ inch long; scales ovate, acute, apiculate. Leaves oval or oblong, larger than in A. Andrachne or A. Unedo, up to 5 inches long by 3 inches broad, rounded or contracted into minute sharp points at the apex,

1 A tree in Kew Gardens, 20 feet high, is figured in Gard. Chron. iv. 724, f. 100 (1888).