490 swingle: Chinese teee of heaven 



BOTANY. — The early European history and the botanical name 

 of the Tree of Heaven, Ailanthus altissima. Walter T. 

 Swingle, Bureau of Plant Industry. 



The story of the first introduction of the Tree of Heaven from 

 China into Europe presents some features of interest which seem 

 to have been overlooked by botanists and arboriculturists of 

 recent times. 



INTRODUCTION INTO EUROPE FROM CHINA 



The seeds of the Tree of Heaven were first sent from China 

 to the Royal Society of London in 1751 by Pierre dTncarville, 

 a French Jesuit missionary then residing at Peking. He sent the 

 seeds under the impression that they were secured from the 

 lacquer or varnish tree at Nanking. These seeds were turned 

 over to Philip Miller at Chelsea Gardens and to Philip Carteret 

 Webb at Busbridge near London. 



About four years later, on March 18, 1755, 1 Philip Miller, 

 writing to the Royal Society from Chelsea, notes that "the seeds, 

 which were sent to the Royal Society some years ago, for those 

 of the true varnish-tree, by the Jesuits at China, prove to be of 

 this wild sort;" .... [Kaempfer's "Fasi no ki. A rbor verni- 

 cifera spuria, sylvestris, angustifolia" =Rhus succedanea L.]. 



John Ellis, afterwards famous for his discovery of the Venus 

 fly trap, Dionaea muscipula, sent to the Royal Society on Novem- 

 ber 8, 1756, an illustrated paper 2 on the lacquer or varnish tree 

 in which he contends that the trees raised at Busbridge and 

 Chelsea from seed sent by Pierre dTncarville are not the spurious 

 varnish tree of Kaempfer, but a new species of sumac of which 

 he says: "As it has not been yet described, I shall call it ... . 

 'Rhus sinense foliis alatis, foliolis oblongis acuminatis, ad basin 

 subrotundis & dentatis.'" 3 He mentions that in Mr. Webb's 

 greenhouse the foliage developed an odor so intensely disagree- 



1 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc, 49 1 : 163. 1756. 



2 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. 49 2 : 870-871, pi. 25, fig. 5. 1757. 



3 The Latin term alatis, in English winged, was used by both- Ellis and Miller 

 to denote what we now call pinnate. 



