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16 THE COBRA RELS FLY. 
The China Berry Tree. 
mental at all seasons of the year and adapt themselves more rapidly to the local con- 
ditions of soiland climate, or are more thoroughly satisfactory and important as shade 
trees in the tropics where densely crowned trees are required. 
The China berry tree attains a height of upward to fifty feet with beautiful spreading 
branches and a dense low crown. It develops an abundance of dark glossy green leaves 
which contrast pleasantly with the somewhat duller green foliage of its associates. The 
large panicles of fragrant, bluish-lilac flowers which appear in great profusion every 
year, together with the dark lustrous green leaves, make it an object of great beauty. 
Unlike so many other useful trees, it produces fruit in great abundance. 
The hardy nature of this tree and its accommodating character as regards soil and 
situation render it one of the easiest trees to plant. It reproduces freely from seed and 
also possesses the useful property of sprouting from the stump and roots after the tree 
is cut down. It may be propagated also by cuttings, which is much quicker and easier 
than by seed, for if the young shoots are planted early in the spring they will strike root 
at once and grow very rapidly. According to good authority young trees grow very 
fast and sometimes send up a central stem twenty feet high in a year anda half. Ata 
height of ten feet, lateral branches develop. The tree is deserving of extensive increase 
not only as a shade tree, for which it possesses undoubted merit, but also as a forest or 
timber tree. Since it is not exacting as to soil and site, the China berry can be confi- 
dently recommended for planting on nearly all the denuded pine lands in the south as 
well as on abandoned agricultural lands throughout the West Indies. 
The wood of the China berry is light brown when freshly cut, but becomes reddish 
as it dries in the air, leaving little or no distinction between heartwood and sapwood. 
The color and grain fit it particularly for cabinet work, and if it were obtainable in suf- 
ficiently large quantities, it would be used in place of mahogany and Spanish cedar. 
The best quality wood is obtained from trees twelve to fifteen inches in diameter and not 
exceeding thirty to forty years of age. Trees grown in good soil increase rapidly in 
diameter and develop wide annual rings of growth which add considerable figure to the 
wood, so that it reminds one of Spanish cedar, to which this tree is closely related. The 
