889 



"Well, I have a few' interesting discoveries to re- 

 port, firstly there are many specimens of Castanea mol- 

 lissima scattered at the bases and on the lower slopes of 

 the hills around here, and -- these chestnuts are serious- 

 ly attacked by the bark-fungus, and in my estimation are 

 going to succumb to it these coming years. The chinqua- 

 pins, however, which are very abundant on the higher 

 and more sterile hill slopes, seem to be immune, at 

 least, I did not see any evidences of damage or even of 

 attacks. This brings another interesting point to my 

 mind. I was told in Nanking that various missionaries at 

 Ruling, the great summer resort in central China for mis- 

 sionaries, were cutting down their chestnuts, as the tops 

 were all dying, due to borers working underneath the bark. 

 (Of course this last cause is the most easily explainable 

 to laymen). But now this is the point: when chestnuts here 

 in eastern central China are only recently being attacked 

 seriously then the disease might have come from some other 

 locality, like from north China possibly, or this Diaporthe 

 parasitica might have become, through mutation or whatever 

 else, much more aggressive of late, than in periods gone 

 by. What do specialists say on this question? 



"The second of my more important observations are 

 that -- hickories occur wild in the mountains near here. 

 I bought some samples of nuts in town and was assured that 

 the trees producing them grow wild in the Fung huang shan 

 region to the west and southwest from here. I found a 

 large tree of a Pecan-like appearance in a densely wooded 

 valley on the slopes of the Pan shan, a few hours from 

 here to the northeast and within some days I may have 

 found the real hickory-nut-tree, which has not been re- 

 ported from China up till now. Wilson in his second vol- 

 ume of 'A Naturalist in China', makes special mention of 

 this fact. Chinese here call them hickory-nuts so, ho to and 

 sa kuo meaning 'sand walnut' and 'sand nut'; why, we have 

 not been able to ascertain as yet. I am sending you, by 

 separate parcel, a small quantity of these hickory nuts. 

 If you see fit, would you kindly ask Professor Sargent's 

 opinion regarding them. I am making arrangements with Dr. 

 Duncan Main here, to send you some fresh nuts this coming 

 autumn. 



Another thing I found on a spur of the Pan shan 

 at an elevation of c. a. 1500 ft. a. s. were wild tea- 

 bushes in a dense thicket of Ilex comuta, Castanea pumila, 

 dwarf bamboo, Juniperus sp . , etc. On this same spur I found 

 wild camphor- trees, wild tallow trees, (Sapium sebife?*u7n) 

 lots of wild Diospyros Jcaki; wild Yang nme trees (Myrica 

 rubra) , Exochorda grandiflora, Chionanthus retusa, Syrnplocos sp. , 



