36 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 



ories to account for the behavior of the vernal flora, the most 

 plausible of which has reference to the Ice Age, which is also 

 held responsible for the migratory habits of our birds. What- 

 ever the cause, it is certain that without this provision of 

 Nature, our springtime would be dreary indeed, for we should 

 have to wait for the plants to grow up and make enough food 

 for blossoming. And the flowers, cultivated or wild, which 

 now serve to make outdoors lovely almost as soon as the snow 

 has gone, would be missing, and it might be doubted whether 

 the birds would long have courage to sing under such circum- 

 stances. 



AILANTHUS. 



BY DR. W. W. BAILEY. 



FEW trees present more points of general interest than the 

 Ailanthus glandulosiis, the "Tree-of-Heaven," "Gotter- 

 baum" of the Germans or "Vernis de Japan," Japanese varnish, 

 of the French. The last name, Lindley tells us, was probably 

 applied to it through some mistake. 



When at its best it is a large and distinctly handsome 

 tree, to which the immensely long pinnate leaves impart a 

 truly tropical appearance. To cause it to assume a symmetri- 

 cal appearance, its lateral branches should annually be re- 

 moved, when the upper ones will form a wide canopy. Hence 

 in France, Italy, and in some parts of our country, mostly in 

 greater New York, it has been much employed as a shade tree. 

 It is a rapid grower and with us makes itself perfectly at home. 

 In the Hudson Highlands I have seen it, quite remote from 

 villages, maintaining itself amidst sentinel cedars and other 

 native forests trees as a dense and beautiful copse. 



While its leaves are not generally attacked by insects, it 

 is the favorite food of a superb moth — the Attacus Cynthia, 

 which, in larva state, infests it. Beautiful as are our Cecropia, 

 Prometheus and Luna moths, they must yield in rich, oriental 



