60 



hope that selected strains could be secured and grafting wood sent in 

 from which to carry on our propagating work. Owing to conditions in 

 China it was found necessary to temporarily suspend this work. 



We have already referred to the exploration work in western China 

 in 1921 and 1922. This work resulted in the securing of the 1-irgest 

 collection of Castaneas and related tree crops heretofore recorded. 

 The Province of Yunnan is a remote and inaccessible one and our 

 explorer had great difficulty in getting seed out. The region and 

 climate are peculiar, the lowland's being subtropical and the moun- 

 tainous sections wet and cold enough in winter for heavy snows. It 

 has turned out that most of the material secured consists of trees be- 

 longing to the genus Castanopsis. We have only one representative 

 of this genus in the United States — viz: the Golden Chinquapin grown 

 on the Pacific Coast. The trees are, for the most part, evergreens 

 and will likely prove an interesting and valuable addition to our 

 southern flora. Collections of these introductions have been established 

 at twelve or fourteen places in the south and on the Pacific Coast. 

 The Castanopsis are all irees, some of them growing to large size. 



Owing to the fact that the Chinese hairy chestnut does not grow 

 to very large size and cannot, therefore, be strictly regarded as a 

 forest tree, we have been gnxious to secure a chestnut or chestnuts 

 that might in a measure equal in size and vigor of growth our native 

 species. There is such a tree in China and to this we have given the 

 name Chinese timber chinquapin. Botanically it is known as Castanea 

 henryi. There is a tree of this species growing in the Arnold Arbore- 

 tum and another small one in our collection at Bell, Maryland. Last 

 year we were successful in grafting about 300 of these trees at our 

 Bell, Maryland, Plant Introduction Garden. We used the Chinese 

 hairy chestnut for stocks. We have also been fortunate in locating 

 supplies of the seed of this chestnut in China and hope to have a large 

 shipment this year. A shipment came in last spring, along with our 

 Chinese hairy chestnut, which went to Chico, California, but unfor- 

 tunately the seed was all dead. The Chinese timber chinquapin grows 

 to a larger size than any other Chinese species, it being not uncommon 

 to find trees 60 to 75, or as much as 100 feet high. The nut of this 

 species is small — very much like our native chinquapin. Recently we 

 have had information from one of our correspondents in China, who 

 has been supplying us with seed, that the Chinese are using a dwarfing 



