JUNE 10, 189I.] 



Garden and Forest. 



267 



Recent Botanical Discoveries in China and 

 Eastern Burma. — VII. 



Davidia. — I have previously said something- about this re- 

 markable tree, but as we have since received at Kew abun- 

 dant specimens of it collected by Dr. A. Henry, with further 

 information respecting the tree and its home hi the west of 

 China, it may not be thought superfluous to devote another 

 paragraph to it, especially as it would probably prove hardy 

 in the northern United States and in the United Kingdom — at 

 all events, in the wilder parts. Like the Chinese Tulip-tree, it 

 would seem to have become exceedingly rare, for Dr. Henry 

 met with only one specimen of it during his long journeyings in 

 Hupeh and Szechuen. As already related, the Abbe' David first 

 discovered it, now some twenty-one years ago, in the district of 

 Moupine, eastern Chinese Tibet. This locality is about seven 

 days' march west of Chingtu, the capital of Szechuen, and David 

 spent nine months there, with most valuable results to science. 

 The principal mountain range rises to an altitude exceeding 

 16,000 feet, and David succeeded in scaling the summit. He 

 was located at an altitude of about 7,000 feet, and to reach this 

 place had to cross a ridge about 10,000 feet high. The main 

 ridge he found beautifully wooded up to 11,500 feet, with 

 charming flowery meadows above, and no permanent snow. 

 Davidia grew on the skirt of the forest, at an elevation of 

 6,500 feet, associated with a large Cerasus, bearing small red 

 fruit, with a gigantic Corylus, with a corky barked Ouercus, 

 and with various Laurels and Figs. Judging from this de- 

 scription of the vegetation one would not expect it to be hardy 

 except in the most climatically favored parts of the United 

 Kingdom ; but Dr. Henry, who is at present in England, is of 

 opinion that it is hardy enough to flourish generally in our 

 climate. Henry found it near south Wushan at about the 

 same elevation that it grows in Tibet, and I am indebted to his 

 kindness for the following particulars of his rediscovery of 

 this remarkable tree : 



"As one ascends the Yangtze, in that part of its course 

 known as the ' rapids and gorges,' one comes to the little 

 village of Psishih, which lies on the right bank, and marks the 

 political division of the Szechuen and Hupeh provinces. 

 Southward from the river the boundary line is a tremendously 

 •deep ravine, through which rushes a stream to join the 

 Yangtze. One cannot get up this ravine, so narrow it is, and 

 so full of cataracts, with wonderfully grand walls of almost per- 

 pendicular rock rising on either side to a height of 3,000 or 

 4,000 feet ! While on my botanical trip of 1888 I staid for 

 some days close to the head of the deep part of the ravine, 

 inland a few miles from the river, in the cottage of an old 

 Roman Catholic lady, named Mrs. Huang. There the ravine 

 widens into' a valley, skirted by a high and precipitous moun- 

 tain range on the eastern side, on the western side by an ex- 

 tended flatfish country. A few miles higher the western moun- 

 tain range curves round to the east, and in this curve, some 

 three or four miles in area, where the streamlet rises, is a bit 

 of 'old wood,' as the Chinese term it, or 'virgin forest,' as 

 we should call it, walled in on three sides by cliffs. Near the 

 forest, in the midst of a few trees which evidently formed part 

 of the ' old wood ' before the farmer had encroached, we 

 came, on May 8th, in view of a striking tree, all green and 

 white in alternate patches, like some curious arrangement in 

 checks. This was a specimen of the Davidia involucrata, the 

 only one I or my coolies saw during a six months' trip over 

 hundreds of miles of wild country. The tree was, on this day, 

 in full bloom, and was between twenty and thirty feet high. 

 We were immediately told two or three names for it by local 

 natives, but nobody really seemed to know anything about it, 

 except that it was very rare, growing all alone, without a rival, 

 in what had been a part of the ancient forest." 



Later in the season, Dr. Henry sent his coolies into the same 

 country again and they obtained fruit, but, unfortunately, not 

 perfect seed. I believe seed was sent to France by the Abb6 

 David, for the late Professor Decaisne, writing to Sir Joseph 

 Hooker in 1871, said, " I have been informed that the Davidia 

 is in cultivation in the nursery of Andre' Leroy, at Angers." 

 However that may have been, I can find no record of its hav- 

 ing been raised. That it, of itself, is almost worth a journey 

 to its home the figures we have of it bear sufficient testimony. 

 The foliage and young wood, in the absence of flowers or 

 fruit, would pass for a Lime ; but when in flower, as stated by 

 Dr. Henry, the tree must present a very striking appearance. 

 The two large bracts enclosing each bead of flowers are pure 

 white, and the numerous anthers are red. Each inflorescence 

 or head of flowers consists of a large number of stamens 

 seated on a club-shaped receptacle, without any trace of calyx 

 or corolla, and usually one female or hermaphrodite flower 



obliquely situated in the midst of the stamens. Sometimes 

 this flower has five imperfect stamens springing from the neck 

 of the pistil and alternating with as many minute calyx-lobes ; 

 sometimes the stamens are wholly wanting ; sometimes the 

 inflorescence contains no female flower. The fruit or seed- 

 vessel is woody and contains three or more cells with a soli- 

 tary seed. 



The botanical affinity of Davidia is with Nyssa (Tupelo, 

 Pepperidge or Sour Gum trees of North America), though it 

 has nothing in common in its general aspect. Singular to 

 say, Dr. Henry also discovered a species of Nyssa, which has 

 been named N. Sinensis — the genus, however, previously 

 known to be represented in India as well as in North America. 

 A new genus of the same affinity — Camptotheca acuminata, 

 discovered by the Abb6 David at Kinkiang, was collected by 

 Dr. Henry in Hupeh ; and yet another new member of this 

 somewhat anomalous group of trees was discovered by Dr. 

 Henry in Szechuen, namely, Toricellia angulata, figured in 

 Hooker's " Icones Plantarum " (plate 1893). Interesting as 

 these trees are, botanically, not one approaches Davidia in 

 ornamental character. The last Toricellia may be deserving 

 of notice. It is a tree fifty feet high, with sharply lobed leaves 

 in the way of a plane, and pendent inflorescence of incon- 

 spicuous flowers. 

 Kew. W. Botting Hemsley. 



How We Renewed an Old Place. 



VIII. — AN ANCIENT ORCHARD. 



'THE whole farm at Overlea might well come under this 

 -*■ head, for it abounds in Apple and Pear-trees, which are 

 scattered about it, from the point at the north to the foot of the 

 hill on the south. 



Tall, fuzzy old settlers they are, with mossy trunks and 

 gaunt branches ; but, like the ancient New England human 

 stock, they die game, and are useful to the end. The weather- 

 beaten old Seckels, which look perfectly hopeless, still pro- 

 duce stout, brown, rosy little pears, as sweet as honey, if not 

 much bigger than an overgrown bumble-bee, and the ven- 

 erable Bartletts, which we threaten every year to cut down 

 because they look so shabby and disreputable in their torn 

 and mossy old jackets, put off the evil day by mollifying us 

 every September with a crop, which, though not large, still 

 serves to purchase them a reprieve. 



One of the conspicuous ornaments of the level space below 

 the northern terrace of the house is an old Pear-tree we call 

 Methusaleh, which was transplanted in 1779, and, in spite of 

 its great age, still bears a profusion of hard, sweet pears, 

 which the housewives consider excellent for coddling or pre- 

 serving with barberries. 



This ancient and honorable old continental, which stands 

 some fifty feet in its stockings, girths ten feet and three inches 

 a foot from the ground, and has a coat so beautifully wrinkled 

 and seamed with age that our artist friend tells us a Japanese 

 would beg a bit of the bark for a curio, and exhibit it as a 

 precious and artistic possession. 



In the spring its venerable poll is snowy with blossoms, and 

 though its great trunk is quite hollow within,- the six huge 

 branches into which it separates near the base, spread 

 wide and strong, and send out from their broken tops vigor- 

 ous young shoots, on which the fruit grows profusely. 



We suppose this to be the original well-known Cushing 

 Pear-tree, as this farm was a part of the colonial grant to 

 Matthew Cushing in 1634, and was the Stammhaus of that 

 widespread race, which held the property in the Cushing name 

 for 243 years, the land having descended by will from one to 

 another, so that we hold the first deed and paid the first money 

 that was ever given for it. 



The Apple-orchard proper, which is in the shape of a flat-iron, 

 lies in the point of the place, which is quite filled by three or 

 four enormous old trees, which have grown to a great height, 

 and had, when we came, immense branches that arched over 

 and almost swept the ground, their huge mounds of rosy 

 bloom in spring making a wondrous sight. 



Since then, with a vague idea of improving them, though 

 some of the wise ones tell us it is a mistake to meddle with 

 such old trees, we have had them pruned, that the sun might 

 shine more directly upon the apples, which failed to color prop- 

 erly in the dense shade. Also, the ground beneath them has 

 been plowed, to the great detriment of their small roots, which, 

 owing to the marshy ground below, lie very near the sur- 

 face. 



Last year was not their bearing year, and not until this au- 

 tumn can we tell the results of this surgery. The plowing 



