530 "The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



pairs, impressed above ; petiole, f inch long, with scattered long hairs ; stipules 

 caducous. Fruit: strobiles, 3 to 6 inches long, long-stalked ; bracts densely imbricated, 

 membranous, i to ij inch long, irregularly serrate; the inner margin furnished 

 below with an orbicular lobe, infolding and concealing the nutlet ; the outer margin 

 slightly inflected at the base. The basal lobe is much larger than in C. japonica, 

 and is united to the bract, not only by its base, but also along one side. 



Var. chinensis, Franchet, Journ. de Bot. 1899, p. 202. Leaves, ovate-oblong, 

 3 inches long by if inch broad, with eighteen to twenty pairs of nerves, slightly 

 cordate and unequal at the base, shortly acuminate at the apex. This variety 

 strongly resembles in the shape of the leaf certain forms of C. japonica, but has the 

 fruit of C. cordata. It seems to be intermediate between the two species, and is 

 found in the mountains of Eastern Szechwan in China. It was introduced into 

 cultivation by Mr. E. H. Wilson in 1901, and young plants are growing in the Coombe 

 Wood Nursery. 



According to Sargent, Carpinus cordata is one of the largest and perhaps 

 the most beautiful of the hornbeams. It grows on the main island of Japan only 

 at high altitudes, its true home being in the deciduous-leaved forest of central and 

 northern Yezo. It is also a native of Korea and Manchuria; and occurs in China, 

 in the typical form, in the province of Shensi,^ the variety chinensis growing more 

 to the south. 



This species was introduced from Japan by Maries in 1879, and produced fruit 

 in 1886 in the Coombe Wood Nursery, where the largest specimen now living is 

 only 1 5 feet in height. A tree at Tortworth is about 20 feet, and has borne fruit, 

 from which, however, Elwes did not succeed in raising seedlings. There is also a 

 small tree at Grayswood, Haslemere. It seems to be very rare in cultivation, and 

 there are no specimens growing in the Hornbeam Collection at Kew. (A. H.) 



CARPINUS LAXIFLORA 



Carpinus laxiflora, Blume, Mus. Bot. Lugd. Bat. i. 309 (1850) ; Oliver, in Hooker, Icon. Plant, t. 1989 

 (1891); Sargent, Garden and Forest, vi. 364 (1893), and Forest Flora Japan, 64 (1894); 

 Burkill, /(?/. Linn. Soc. {Bot.), xxvi. 501 (1899); Shirasawa, Icon. Ess. Forest. /apon, text 48, 

 t. 25, ff. 15-30 (1900); Winkler, Betulacece, 33 (1904). 



Carpinus Fargesii, Franchet, /w/r/?. de Bot. 1899, p. 202. 



A tree, attaining in Japan 50 feet in height and 5 feet in girth ; bark smooth, 

 grey, sometimes almost white in colour. Young branchlets with scattered long hairs. 

 Leaves (Plate 201, Fig. 8), 2^ inches long by \^ inch broad, ovate or ovate-elliptical, 

 contracted above into a long acuminate apex, rounded or slightly cuneate at the 

 base; margin, bi-serrate, non-ciliate ; upper surface with scattered long appressed 

 hairs ; lower surface with long appressed hairs on the midrib and nerves, glabrous 

 between the nerves ; nerves thirteen to fifteen pairs ; petiole, ^ inch long, pilose ; 



Burkill, Ifc. cU. 



