ADDISONIA 41 
(Plate 181) 
CLETHRA BARBINERVIS 
Asiatic Sweet Pepper-bush 
Native of eastern Asia 
Family CLETHRACEAE WHITE ALDER Family 
Clethra barbinervis Sieb. & Zucc. Abh. Akad. Miinch. 4°: 128, 1846. 
This is one of the most striking of the sweet pepper-bushes. 
It is of upright habit, and bears its racemes of fragrant blossoms in 
panicles. While this, as is the case with the remainder of the hardy 
species, does best in a moist peaty or sandy soil, it will also grow in 
dry situations, although not attaining there so great a size. It is 
as hardy as our native eastern species, Clethra alnifolia, illustrated 
at plate 12, and is larger and more showy. Propagation may be 
effected readily by seed, which should be sown in pans in the spring 
in sandy or peaty soil; it may also be propagated from greenwood 
cuttings under glass; resort may be had also to layering and division. 
The illustration was prepared from a plant which has been in the 
fruticetum collections of the New York Botanical Garden since 
1899, when it was imported directly from Japan. 
The Asiatic sweet pepper-bush is a shrub or small tree, attaining 
a height sometimes of thirty feet. Its glabrous branches are 
upright or ascending. The nies are alternate, deciduous, with 
petioles a half inch long or less. The blades are se 
ix inches long a 
acuminate at the apex and usually a at the base; the upper 
surface is es green, finally glabrous, ete lower surface paler and 
ubescent, at least ee The racemes are 
The lobes of the white corolla are oval and obtuse. The stamens 
are glabrous. The fruit is a little broader than high, and is pees 
GEORGE V. NASH 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. Fig. 1.—Flowering —— Figs. 2 and 3.— 
Stamens, X 3. Fig. 4,—Pistil, xX 3. Fig. 5.—Fruit, 
