OCTOBER 179 



summer ; but, in fact, such American trees and shrubs 

 as adapt themselves to British soil and climate forfeit 

 none of their characteristic brilliancy in decay under 

 our cloudy skies and humid conditions. We might 

 have our woods quite as gay in autumn as those of 

 Ontario or Michigan if we chose to fill them with 

 American trees. And what shall be said of the horse- 

 chestnut, a tree known in a wild state only in the 

 mountains of Greece and Albania, where, assuredly, if 

 anywhere else, summer heat is never wanting ? Yet no 

 tree lights up more lavishly in a British autumn. As I 

 sit writing here on this fine October morning, I have 

 but to raise my eyes from the paper to rest them for 

 refreshment on an old horse-chestnut of perfect sym- 

 metry, one golden glory over all its sixty feet of 

 stature. Most horse-chestnuts, like this one, turn their 

 dying foliage to pure yellow; less frequent, but even 

 more gorgeous, are those whereof the leaves on some of 

 the branches pass into crimson and orange. 



Cercidiphyllum Japonicum there is no English 

 name for it is one of the most conspicuous trees at 

 this season. It is said to be the largest deciduous tree 

 in Japan ; but whether it will ever exceed the dimen- 

 sions of a shrub in Great Britain remains to be proved. 

 Mr. Bean thinks it will not, having failed to make 

 much of it at Kew, where it was first planted in 1881. 

 I raised some thousands of it from seed in 1906, and, 

 failing to get information about the species, treated the 

 young plants as shrubs; until I happened upon a 

 reference to it in A Traveller's Notes by Mr. J. K. 

 Veitch, who describes a specimen near Hakodate 



