This fir is also exceedingly ornamental in a young state, some of the seedlings from every sowing having foliage with a lovely glaucous bloom. _A. magnifica_ and _A. amabilis_ are not easily distinguished from _A. nobilis_ in a young state, until cones are produced. They are beautiful, but comparatively useless trees, and there are no specimens in this country approaching the dimensions already attained here by _A. nobilis_. Of the Asiatic silvers I will mention but two, both from the Himalayas. _Abies pindrow_, a beautiful tree of columnar growth and fine glossy foliage, has proved quite hardy in Britain. The finest specimen I have seen is at Gordon Castle, Banffshire, about 70 feet high and a picture of health. _A. webbiana_ is a tree of wider spread than _A. pindrow_, and excels all other silvers in its splendid foliage, two broad white bands on the under sides of the large needles thoroughly justifying the epithet "silver." When the boughs are set with great violet-blue cones this tree is indeed a beautiful object. Individuals of this species vary a good deal in their endurance of British climate, at least in the west. Its tendency to early growth renders it very vulnerable by spring frosts, and when it has been debilitated by the destruction of the young growth, it falls a prey to the attacks of aphis. The Spruce Firs When a British forester talks of a spruce fir he may be understood to refer to _Picea excelsa_, commonly known as the Norway spruce, although in fact much of the Norwegian spruce forest is composed of the Siberian spruce (_P. obovata_), a species closely resembling the other, but incapable of thriving in the moist and relatively mild climate of Great Britain. The so-called Norway spruce is not a native of the British Isles, its natural range extending from the Pyrenees on the south to Scandinavia on the north, and eastward through the Carpathian Mountains to Western Russia; but, next to the Scots pine and larch, it is the conifer most commonly seen in British woodland, and, where undergrowth is not too rank, it may reproduce itself from self-sown seed. It has, indeed, been far too extensively planted with us, probably owing to its cheapness and easiness to handle. It is only to be found well developed in inland districts, such as the valley of the Tay and Deeside, where it forms really fine forest, and where noble specimens may be seen.