HAMAMELIS 



605 



when young with down which mostly falls away by autumn ; stalk j to f in. 

 long, downy. Flowers yellow, slightly scented, produced a few together in 

 globose heads during January and February on the then leafless twigs made 

 the previous summer ; petals in. long, very narrow, strap-shaped, and much 

 crumpled ; bracts reddish, downy outside. 



Native of China and Japan. This is one of the most beautiful of winter or 

 early spring-flowering shrubs. It flowers freely, and its thin wrinkled petals 

 make a very pretty picture at the inclement season when they appear, 

 especially if the shrub has a dark background of evergreens. The species is a 

 somewhat variable one, the shrub grown in gardens as H. japonica is a 

 flattish, wide-spreading shrub, and the plants called "arborea" and "Zuc- 

 cariniana " in gardens are only forms 

 of it. 



Yar. ARBOREA (H. arborea, Masters) 

 differs from ordinary japonica in being 

 of more gaunt, treelike form, and 15 

 to 20 ft. high, in the deeper yellow of 

 the petals, and in the calyx having a 

 deep claret shade. It perhaps flowers 

 at an earlier date. Introduced from 

 Japan by Siebold in 1862. 



Yar. ZUCCARINIANA is also treelike, 

 but its flowers, instead of being of the 

 golden yellow of H. arborea, are of a 

 pale lemon yellow, and the calyx is 

 green. ' But both are mere seminal 

 variations, and both, to be obtained 

 true, must be propagated by grafting 

 on seedlings of either themselves or 

 H. virginiana. Seeds cannot be relied 

 on to come true, those of arborea will 

 often produce H. japonica ; as a large 

 experimenter in the raising of the 

 Japanese witch-hazels has expressed 

 it to me, " you sow seeds and may 

 get anything." The flower-buds of 

 these witch-hazels are already formed HAMAMELIS MOLLIS. 



on short stalks in the leaf-axils by 

 July, six or perhaps eight months before they expand. 



H. MOLLIS, Oliver. CHINESE WlTCH-HAZEL. 



(Bot. Mag., t. 7884.) 



A deciduous shrub or small tree, with stout, zigzag, spreading branches, 

 very downy when young. Leaves roundish or very broadly obovate, shortly 

 and abruptly pointed, heart-shaped, but unequal-sided at the base, 3 to 

 5 ins. long, three-fourths as broad, widely and shallowly toothed, covered 

 beneath with clustered (stellate) hairs ; stalk \ in. long, stout and downy. 

 Flowers rich golden yellow, very fragrant, produced in stalkless, crowded 

 clusters from December to February on the twigs of the previous summer's 

 growth ; petals strap-shaped, about \ in. long, not wavy as in japonica ; 

 calyx-lobes rich red-brown, hairy outside, smooth within. 



Native of China ; first discovered and introduced about 1879, D Y Maries, 

 from the district of Kiu-kiang, near the Yangtze-kiang River. Afterwards 

 it was found much farther west by Henry and Wilson. This is undoubtedly 

 the finest of all known witch-hazels, both as regards flower and foliage ; 



