194 WILSON EXPEDITION TO CHINA 
with a trunk from 1.5 to 2 m. in girth and is an important constituent of the woods 
and forests. It is readily distinguished from the other old world species of the 
section Eucastanon by the complete absence of lepidote glands on the under surface 
of the leaves, which on the same tree are glabrous or nearly so or are densely cov- 
ered with a nearly white felt of stellate hairs. In its typical form the branchlet is 
sparsely or densely pilose, and this is especially the case on vigorous shoots and on 
young trees, but with a little searching such hairs can be found on every tree. As à 
rule, however, on adult trees the branchlets are densely or sparsely clothed with 
a short, gray velutinous pubescence only. The winter-buds are short and broadly 
ovoid and pubescent. The leaves are very variable in size, the dentation is very 
irregular, and the teeth are broad and triangular and terminate in a long aristate 
point or they are reduced to a short mucro. The male aments are variable in length, 
but are usually shorter than the leaves; the fruit is also variable in size and there 
are forms in which the nut is as large as that of the best forms of the European 
Chestnut (C. sativa Miller). The involucral spines at maturity are pale straw color 
and are densely clothed with appressed villose pubescence. 
This Chinese Chestnut has been confused with C. sativa Miller, which grows 
in the Mediterranean region and eastward to the Caucasus and in northern Persia, 
and is distinguished by the presence in fewer or greater numbers of minute lepidote 
glands scattered over the under surface of the leaves and occasionally confined 
to the primary and secondary veins and tissues nearby; the shoot too is different, 
being nearly glabrous, and clothed only with a scurvy puberulous indumentum; 
the male aments are often longer than the leaves, though this character has little 
or no significance. 
Castanea mollissima was first introduced to cultivation at this Arboretum by 
Professor Sargent, who in 1903 sent seeds which he purchased in a market at 
Peking. The plants raised from these seeds have proved hardy here and have 
grown well. They are now quite established and have produced fruit. They have 
shown no signs of the dreaded chestnut-bark disease. But in China this species 
is subject to this disease, for in a note on his No. 1409 from Nanking, Meyer 
says, “ the tree was attacked by the bark disease Diaportha parasitica Murrill.” 
In regard to C. Bungeana Blume there can be no question that it is identical 
with his C. mollissima. Seemen first took up this latter name, and as priority of 
position has no standing under the international rules, C. Bungeana Blume be- 
comes a synonym. Hayata’s C. sativa, var. formosana (in Jour. Coll. Sci. Tokyo, 
XXX. 304 [1911]), of which we have seen no specimen, in all probability is referable 
to C. mollissima Blume. 
> The m name for this Chestnut is Pan-li, and the nuts are a valued article 
o : 
Pictures of this tree will be found under Nos. 506, 540 of the collection of Wil- 
son's photographs, and also in his Vegetation of Western China, Nos. 146, 147. 
Castanea Seguinii Dode in Bull. Soc. Dendr. France, 1908, 152, 
fig.; in Fedde, Rep. Spec. Nov. X. 240 (1911). — Schneider, Ill. Handb. 
Laubholzk. II. 899 (1912). — Wilson, Naturalist West. China, Il. 32 
(1913). — Koidzumi in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XXX. 100 (1916). 
Castanea vulgaris, var. Japonica Hance in Jour. Bot. XII. 262 (non A. De Can- 
dolle) (1874). — Franchet in Nouv. Arch. Mus. Paris, sér. 2, VII. 87 (Pl. 
David. 1. 277) (1884). 
Castanea sativa, var. japonica Seemen in Bot. Jahrb. XXIX. 287 (1900). 
Castanea Davidii Dode in Bull. Soc. Dendr. France, 1908, 153, fig.; in Fedde, 
