836 



Hypericum patulum Thunberg. (Hyperlcaceae. ) 39644. 

 Seeds from Darjeeling, India. Presented by Mr. G. H. Gave, 

 Curator Lloyd Botanic Garden. "A dwarf shrub in England, 

 but said to grow as much as six feet high in Japan and the 

 Himalaya. Leaves one and one-half inches long, ovate, 

 deep green above, glaucous beneath. Flowers two inches 

 across, borne in a cyme at the end of the shoot; petals 

 bright golden yellow, overlapping, roundish; sepals broad- 

 ly ovate, one-third inch long. Stamens in five bundles. 

 Introduced to Kew from Japan by Oldham in 1862; a native 

 also of China and the Himalaya. It is not absolutely 

 hardy in England (at Kew) and almost always has its stems 

 cut back to the ground-level during the winter. These 

 spring up again the following season from one to two feet 

 high, and flower from July to October. After a few years 

 the shoots are apt to become more and more weakly and it 

 becomes necessary to renew the stock from cuttings. The 

 only species with which it can be confounded are: H. hooTc- 

 erianujn, from which it differs in the branchlets being 

 two-edged, especially just beneath the flowers; H. lysi- 

 machioides t which has narrow, linear-lanceolate sepals; and 

 H. uralum, with flowers half the size." (W. J. Bean, Trees 

 and Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles, vol. 1, p. 639.) 



Mangifera indica L. (Anacardiaceae . ) 39485. Seeds of a 

 mango from Ceylon. Presented by Mr. C. K. Moser, American 

 Consul, Harbin, Manchuria. "A few months before 1 left 

 Ceylon a Sinhalese friend sent me a few mangos which he 

 called 'coconut mangos', which he said were from Jaffna 

 and very rare. They were about as large as a coconut, and 

 similar in shape, the skin and flesh a deep, rich yellow, 

 except upon the cheeks, where burned a blush as glorious 

 as any that ever dyed a peach. They were the most deli- 

 cious fruits my wife and I ever tasted in all our lives. 

 We never saw either in India or Ceylon any others like 

 them, and when I wrote to Jaffna I was informed they did 

 not grow there, but that they were evidently a rare variety 

 which seldom fruited in Ceylon and then only in certain 

 localities. Unfortunately I was too busy to investigate 

 then and I have forgotten the name which Dr. Brown of 

 Jaffna gave for them. It is certainly not commonly known 

 In the middle East, and it certainly is a fruit for a 

 king. It has neither fibrous flesh nor petroleum flavor; 

 the fruits from which these seeds came were perfect." 

 (Moser. ) 



Myricaria germanica Desv. (Tamaricaceae . ) 39630. Seeds 

 from Petrograd, Russia. Presented by the Director, Im- 

 perial Botanic Garden. "A deciduous shrub, six to eight 

 feet high, glaucous grey, and of rather gaunt habit. 



