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though it has the appearance in the picture of being a shrub. 

 It was transplanted with many others of the same variety to a 

 gravelly ridge where it made a slow growth — slower than the 

 one to the right which is of the same variety and transplanted 

 at the same time." A colored photo postal sent shows a bushy 

 tree of regular outline much broader than the one pictured in the 

 present article. Those "of the same variety" in the row are 

 obviously normal sugar maples. 



Mr. L. S. Hopkins, of the Peabody High School, Pittsburg, Pa., 

 after examining photographs sent him, writes concerning a tree 

 discovered in Wayne, Co., Ohio: "Although of a slightly differ- 

 ent type, I think my tree is exactly the same. . . . The tree is 

 not an unusually large one but rather undersized. However, 

 the shape is such that every one who sees it for the first time 

 thinks it has been trimmed into its present form but so far as I 

 have been able to find out it has never been touched." 



The three trees discussed, in addition to their regularity of 

 outline, show in common a relatively slow growth. The wide 

 separation of the localities where they are found would indicate 

 they had originated independently. It is possible that individual 

 trees of similar habit may be found in other localities. If so, 

 the writer would be glad to have them brought to his attention. 

 The form, however, is so unusual in a deciduous tree and so 

 conspicuous from a distance that it is improbable they could 

 escape notice, even of a layman. Their occurrence therefore 

 must be extremely rare. Moreover, Prof. C. S. Sargent has 

 kindly examined photographs of the tree from Binghamton, 

 N. Y., and informs the writer that no occurrence of a sugar 

 maple with any such habit of growth has been reported or is 

 known in the literature. 



Fruit has not been obtained from any of these three trees and 

 the writer has been unable to visit the tree at Binghamton 

 during the flowering season. In consequence no experiments 

 have been undertaken to discover how the peculiar form is 

 inherited in sexual reproduction. That the peculiarity is an 

 inheritable character and not a mere environmental modification 

 is presumable from the association of the abnormal forms with 



