43 o The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



New York and western Pennsylvania, through southern Ontario and southern 

 Michigan to the valley of the Minnesota River and to eastern Nebraska, eastern 

 Kansas, south-west Arkansas, the Indian territory, and central Tennessee. 



The tree is noted ' in America for its habit of suckering from the roots when 

 it is cut down. After a tree is felled the ground around to a distance of often loo 

 feet becomes filled with numerous suckers ; and this is one of the ways in which the 

 trees are reproduced in the American forests. The tree never develops any 

 epicormic branches, and is very seldom attacked by any insect or fungus. 



(A. H.) 



An article by Sargent in Garden and Forest, ii. p. 75, gives an excellent account 

 of this tree, and states that by far the largest and handsomest that he has seen was 

 planted in 1804 directly in front of the historical Verplanck mansion at Fishkill-on- 

 Hudson, and was, in 1889, 75 feet high and a little over 10 feet in girth below the 

 point where it divides into three stems at 3 feet from the ground. Though it was 

 struck by lightning in 1887, the tree is an extremely graceful and well-shaped one, 

 as the picture shows. 



The tree grows well as far north as Ottawa, where I saw two spreading 

 trees about 40 feet high, planted in front of Rideau Hall, the residence of 

 the Governor -General. The gardener informed me that they were the latest 

 trees to come into leaf, and, though they flowered in good seasons, produced 

 no fruit. 



At Mount Carmel, Illinois, I measured a tree in the forest 92 feet by 8 feet, 

 one of the few remaining relics of the splendid trees described by Ridgway, one of 

 which was 109 feet high, with a clear stem 76 feet to the first limb, but only 

 20 inches across the stump. Dr. Schneck has measured one in the same locality no 

 less than 129 feet high. It is, however, nowhere an abundant tree in this district, 

 but grows scattered through the richer bottoms. 



The tree from which a specimen log in the Jessup collection in the American 

 Museum of Natural History was cut, grew not far from St. Louis, and although 

 only 18 inches in diameter was 105 years old. This represents the average rate 

 of increase of the tree growing naturally in the forest, cultivated trees in favourable 

 conditions growing much more rapidly. 



Cultivation 



Gymnocladus canadensis was introduced into England by Archibald, Duke of 

 Argyll, who had a tree in cultivation '^ at Whitton in 1 748. This tree was after- 

 wards removed to Kew, on the establishment of the gardens there by the Princess 

 of Wales, mother of George III., who obtained it and many other interesting trees 

 as a present from the Duke of Argyll in 1762. This tree died^ about 1870; and 

 as old trees reported by Loudon at Syon and elsewhere cannot now be found, it 

 goes to show that the tree lives little over 100 years in England. 



* Garden and Forest, vii. 358 (1894). > Alton, Hort. Kew. v. 400 (181 3). 



^ J. Smith, Diet. Econ. Plants, 235 (1882), mentions this tree as if it was still living in 1882; but according to 

 NichoUon it had died several years previously to that date. 



