42 ARISTOCRATS OF THE GARDEN 



midseason flowering trees. It is much cultivated in 

 Peking gardens and will withstand heat and drought 

 as well as cold. In the semi-arid valleys of western 

 China another and closely allied species (K. apiculata) 

 is common and is now in cultivation in western 

 gardens. 



The Sophora is allied to the Locust tree but, for- 

 tunately unlike the latter, it is not subject to attacks 

 of boring insects. Its specific name notwithstanding, 

 Sophora japonica is indigenous in China and is only 

 known as a cultivated tree in Japan, having been in- 

 troduced by Buddhist priests perhaps a thousand 

 years ago. In China this tree is widely dispersed and 

 in the extreme west is very common in rocky and 

 sandy semi-arid valleys. It is a very hardy tree, 

 from sixty to eighty feet tall, and has a dense wide- 

 spreading oval or flattened crown, and toward the 

 end of July and in August every branchlet termi- 

 nates in an erect branching cluster of creamy-white 

 flowers which are followed by slender, curiously con- 

 stricted saponaceous pod-like fruits. 



This Sophora flowered first under cultivation near 

 Paris in 1779, having been raised from seeds sent from 

 Peking by Father d'lncarville, a Jesuit priest, about 

 1747. On sandy soil in the Royal Gardens, Kew, 

 where it was received from Paris through J. Gordon in 



