Of this new variegated Spruce, introduced in England, and first sent out this spring, the English journals are printing very complimentary notices. The Gardeners' Chronicle says of it, in an article on "Variegated Plants ": "The first case was that of an Abies Douglasii, which we saw at Castle Kennedy, one of the seats of the Earl of Stair. It was almost white from head to foot. It is now a well-grown plant about eight feet high, and constantly exhibits the same phenomena, as do also a number of other plants raised from it by grafts or cuttings. When it first puts out its leaves they are perfectly white, and they continue so until the end of August, by which time a shade of green begins to spread over them. It first appears at the base of the older leaves, gradually creeps up towards the tip, doing the same successively with all the leaves, until, by the end of September, the. variegation is wholly, or almost wholly gone. * * * It is strong and healthy as any Douglas Fir around it, and so are the young plants raised from it.

It is not the same as if the tree was originally weak, and, on acquiring strength, threw off the pallor of ill-health; the same thing is repeated year after year, with the unvarying regularity of a normal action inherent in the plant. * * *

The Garden says: "It is a strikingly beautiful tree, even in the autumn, but far more so in the spring, when it is a veritable silver, indeed, almost a pure white species. This, unlike some so-called variegations, is not the result of weakness or delicacy of constitution. I had the opportunity of examining some hundreds of these beautiful trees, which in hardiness, rapidity of growth, and vigor of constitution, seemed to equal their green parent. There can be little doubt that a brilliant future is in store for this Silver Spruce in our woods and landscapes. It is impossible to conceive anything more novel and charming than a free-growing Spruce, with young shoots almost as white as the Acer Negundo variegata. It seems to have no tendency to reversion. The whole stock of grafted plants is perfectly true to the original."

Again, in the Gardeners' Chronicle, Mr. Fish says: "At the head of them (the variegated or colored trees), in value as a pictorial tree, I would place the Abies Douglasii Stairii, a perfectly hardy, free-growing Spruce, as much so, I believe, as its green parent, and almost wholly silver throughout the spring and summer months. Fancy a white Spruce in landscape scenery. In this tree, contrasted with others, we virtually have it. It is the very tree that has long been wanted to lighten up the too sombre colors of Fir woods and even Pinetums."