1925) AMERICAN TREES AND SHRUBS IN HATARMAJOR, RUMANIA 209 



AMERICAN TREES AND SHRUBS IN THE PARK OF 



HATARMAJOR, RUMANIA. 



I 



The park of Hat&rmajor is situated southeast of Temesvar in the 

 plain of the so-called Banat and northwest of the mountains of Karanseles 

 in that part of Hungary which, owing to the peace treaty of Trianon, has 

 been ceded to Rumania. The park is part of the estate belonging to 

 Count Louis Ambr6zy, now Hungarian Envoy extraordinary and Minister 

 plenipotentiary in Vienna, Austria, who was from 1907 to 1910 a member 

 of the Austro-Hungarian Embassy in Washington, and being an ardent 

 plant lover, paid, during that time, frequent visits to the Arnold Arboretum. 

 These visits awakened his interest in American trees and shrubs and in- 

 spired him to try the acclimatization of these plants in his native country. 

 In this undertaking, he received the vigorous support of Professor Sargent, 

 and seeds secured through the Arnold Arboretum were sent to his estate 

 in Hungary and there successfully raised. After his return to Hungary, 

 Count Ambr6zy started to lay out with the help of a prominent landscape 

 architect an extensive park surrounding his castle at Hat&rmajor. Of 

 this park a section was devoted exclusively to American trees and shrubs. 

 He also made, outside the park, plantations on a large scale of economically 

 important American trees such as Hickories, Black Walnut, Elms, Cana- 

 dian Poplar and Red Cedar, which all are now in a flourishing condition 

 and promise valuable returns. One of the most interesting is the planta- 

 tion of Hickories consisting of six species in thousands of trees planted 



in close stands. They were planted in 1909 and have grown rapidly; they 

 probably form now the finest plantation outside of America of Hickories, 



* 



which always have remained rare trees in European gardens and parks. 

 The climate of Hat&rmajor seems to be congenial to American plants 

 as the profuse flowering of Chionanthus and Cercis canadensis shows, 

 the latter even tends to become naturalized for seedlings are springing 

 up under the old trees. Castanea dentata and C. pumila are both producing 

 fruit and the former apparently could be grown more successfully there 



than in its native country, where it is now decimated by the chestnut- 

 blight. A grove of Taxodium distichum, though planted on rather dry 

 soil, is doing well. The winter in southern Hungary seems to be rather 

 mild and probably more like that of the middle Atlantic States, if we 

 may judge by the fact that Jasminum nudiflorum, planted on the walls of 

 the castle, begins to bloom in January, and that evergreen shrubs like 

 Prunus Laurocerasus and P. lusitanica and Pyracantha coccinea flourish. 

 To show how well the American ligneous flora is represented at Hat&r- 

 major, a list of the species growing there may be given here. 

 Abies lasiocarpa var. arizonica acer saccharinum L. (A. dasycar- 



Lemm. 



pum Ehrh.) 



Acer rubrum L. " saccharum Marsh. 



Extracted from a German translation of a Hungarian manuscript by Dr. Gustav 



Moesz. 



