height. ‘He has stated that the fruit is edible. This 
species, along with the evergreen C’. capitata, Wall., of 
the Himalayas, constitutes the Asiatic subgenus which 
Lindley recognised as the genus Benthamia. This group 
is characterised by the large corolla-like involucre and 
more especially by the coalescence of the fruits into a 
fleshy strawberry-like mass. This latter feature distin- 
guishes the two constituent species from (. florida, Linn., 
figured at t. 8315 of this work, and (. Nuttalli7, Audubon, 
figured at t. 8311, which together form the subgenus 
Benthamidia, Spach. These latter two also have a large 
showy involucre, but in both the fruits remain free and 
both are confined to North America. (€. Kousa flowers 
in May and thrives very weli in the British Isles, over 
the greater part of which it should be quite hardy. It 
has never suffered from cold at Kew. It likes a deep 
well-drained, loamy soil and a sunny position. It is less 
sensitive to injury by late spring frosts than ©. florida is, 
and when in flower may be described as one of the most 
beautiful as well as remarkable of hardy shrubs. It 
varies a good deal as regards the size of the involucre and 
the Chinese form introduced from Hupeh, which is fig- 
ured here, has the largest and most striking bracts of any 
we have seen in cultivation, though among the fine series 
of specimens from Japan preserved in the Kew her- 
barium there are some with bracts quite as large as those 
of this Chinese plant. 
Description.— Tree up to 30 ft. high, or a shrub, young branchlets glabrous 
or glabrescent. Leaves deciduous, opposite, ovate, oblong or suborbicular, 
apex acuminate, base rounded or broadly cuneate, margin entire, 1-4 in. long, 
{-1{ in. wide, dark green above, paler grey-green beneath, with short adpressed 
hairs on both surfaces, but more copious beneath, where also tufts of brown 
tomentum occur in the axils of the nerves beneath; lateral nerves in 4—5 pairs ; 
petiole {-3 in. long, minutely pubescent. Flowers 3}; in. in diameter, sessile, 
closely packed in heads § in. across, which are subtended by 4 large white petaloid 
involucral bracts, and are borne on a slender glabrous or minutely pubescent 
peduncle 1}-83 in. long; bracts wide ovate to ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, 
cuneate at the base, with 6-10 longitudinal nerves, horizontally spreading or 
slightly deflexed, 13-2} in. long, 4-1 in. wide. Calyx minute. Petals 4, 
oblong, concave, ;'; in. long, pubescent, 3-nerved. Stamens 4; filaments 
glabrous. Style clothed with silky hairs. Fruits fleshy, united in a red, 
strawberry-like, globose mass }—% in. wide. 
Tap. 8833.—Fig. 1, flower; 2, section of flower, the petals removed; 8 and 
4, anthers with portion of filament :—all enlarged. 
