JOURNAL 
OF 
The New York Botanical Garden 
VoL. XV March, 1914 No. 171 
FORSYTHIAS OR GOLDEN BELLS 
(With PiaTe CXXVIII) 
The forsythias or golden bells are among the showiest of our 
spring flowers, in the latitude of New York clothing themselves 
late in April or early May with a profusion of bright yellow 
blossoms. These appear before the leaves, so the effect is one of a 
or mass of yellow, almost dazzling in its brilliancy in the 
ee sunlight. They are by far the most attractive shrubs of 
that season of the year, and groups of them stand out in the land- 
scape as striking masses of color. They are of easy culture and 
should form a part of the decorative features wherever space 
will permit. 
The genus contains four or five species, distributed, with one 
exception, in the central, northern, and eastern parts of China. 
This one exception, F. europaea, related to F. viridissima, occurs 
in Albania, far removed from the home of the other species. The 
first species discovered, F. suspensa, was found in Japan by 
Thunberg, and described by him in 1788 as Syringa suspensa, 
afterward forming the type of the genus Forsythia described by 
Vahl. It is now held, however, that the presence of this species 
in Japan was purely through the channels of horticulture, an 
that it is really a native of northern and central China. 
[Journax for February, 1914 (45: 23-45) was issued March ro, 1914] 
47 
