164 MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY 



Side by side with the Davidia is a good-sized tree (fifty feet by 

 four feet girth) of the Chinese Horse-Chestnut. Hornbeam and 

 Tetracentron are common and higher up Birch, White, Red and 

 Black luxuriate. Maples are a feature of these woods, all tall 

 trees but of no great thickness. Beech is numerically perhaps the 

 commonest tree in these forests, part of it being formed entirely 

 of these trees. So light demanding are they that they suffer no 

 competitors or even undergrowth. For the first time in my 

 travels I am able to say definitely that there are two distinct 

 species in this region. One forms a tree with a single trunk, the 

 other always has several trunks. The former species has glabrous, 

 shining green leaves, with a large, dense, much-branched head; 

 it makes a tree forty to fifty feet high with a trunk five to ten feet 

 in girth and, save for its smaller stature, very strongly resembles 

 the European Beech. The other species, which is the recognized 

 Chinese Beech, grows much taller but never attains the girth of 

 the other. It generally has six to twelve trunks averaging two to 

 five feet in girth, arising closely together and slanting away from 

 one another as they grow. The bark is light grey and the leaves 

 sub-glaucous and hairy below; branches somewhat ascending 

 but with the young branchlets slender and pendulous. A local 

 name for the Beech is "Peh-li-tzu." Small plants were common 

 but no flowers were to be discovered. 



In the shade of trees a black currant {Ribes longeracemosa var. 

 Wilsonii) with racemes one to one and a half feet long is common, 

 whilst Rodgersia aesculifolia with its large, erect, thyrsoid panicles 

 of white flowers is rampant. 



Five species of oak, three deciduous and two evergreen occur. 

 Meliosma Veitchiorum and many species of Pomaceae and Cherries 

 are common, while the Varnish tree is everywhere abundant. 

 In dense shade various evergreen Barberries occur and in open 

 country Ncillia sinensis forms dense thickets. 



Of conifers Pinus Armandii and P. densiflora are scattered over 

 the cliffs; Picca Wilsonii and a flat-leaved Spruce are rare, 

 whilst the Hemlock Spruce is fairly common — neat, dense trees 

 of no great size with their young leaves just unfolding and old 

 cones abundant. The white Pine {P. Armandii) is more common 

 higher up on the mountains; with its long needles, graceful port. 



