123 
gratified if the opportunity were taken to send some home. The 
tree is apparently not uncommon in Cyprus, for Kotschy states 
that the acorns were collected by the monks of the Greek monas- 
teries, dried, and used for mixing with the winter fodder of their 
omestic animals. 
Quercus cleistocarpa, Seemen. (Lithocarpus cleistocarpa, 
Rehder and Wilson.) 
In regard to size of individual leaf this is the finest of the oaks 
introduced from China. Acorns were sent home by Mr. EK. H. 
Wilson in 1901, when he was collecting for Messrs. Veitch, and 
plants raised at Coombe Wood under his seed number 1204 are 
now in cultivation at Kew and elsewhere. It is evergreen and 
apparently quite hardy. But how much it appreciates a climate 
milder than the average one of this country 1s shown by a tree 
growing in Mr. J. C. Williams’ woods at Caerhays, in Cornwall, 
as compared with plants at Kew. Here it is a shrub, slow-growing 
and with leaves up to 6 in. long only, whereas in Cornwall the 
tree has a slender erect stem and bears leaves well over 1 ft. 
long by 8 or 4 in. wide. All the leaves are perfectly glabrous, 
cuneate at the base, with an acuminate apex, and are rather grey- 
ish-green in hue. The acorn-cups are } to 1 in. wide, densely clus- 
tered on a stiff spike 2 to 3 in. long, the acorns almost entirely 
enclosed. It may be long before they are produced in this country, 
but as a fine-foliaged tree it is well worth cultivation in the 
milder counties. Wilson found it in Western Hupeh as a tree 
0 to upwards of 50 ft. high. 
Rhododendron hippophaeoides, Balfour fil. et W. W. Smith. 
[ Ericaceae. 
This charming Rhododendron is one of Mr. Forrest’s dis- 
coveries. He found it as a shrub 4 to 5 ft. high in open situa- 
tions in Alpine scrub on the mountains of Yunnan, China, at an 
altitude of 12,000 ft. From seeds presented by Mr. J. C. Williams 
i 5, a good stock has been obtained at Kew. As represented 
by these young plants, the species is of erect, rather slender 
growth, the young branches furnished the whole of their length 
flowers are borne, seven or eight together, in terminal clusters. 
The corolla, 2 to 1 in. wide, with five rounded spreading lobes, 
varies considerably in colour. Mr. Forrest describes the flowers 
as “blue, drying a lavender blue,” ‘‘ pale bluish rose, 
The species is thriving well at Kew, and flowers both in autumn 
and inspring. This year, the mild weather of February and early 
March bisachi out the flowers earlier than usual, and the first 
