48 ARISTOCRATS OF THE GARDEN 



finest of these Sorbarias is S. arborea, a very common 

 shrub in central and western China whence I intro- 

 duced it into the Arnold Arboretum and elsewhere. On 

 the Chino-Thibetan borderland this plant is very abun- 

 dant and grows from fifteen to twenty feet high and as 

 much through, and bears in profusion much-branched 

 arching panicles often two feet long of pure-white 

 flowers. From the extreme northwestern Himalayas 

 came S. Aitchisonii, with smooth shoots and pale 

 green leaves and even larger masses of flowers than 

 the preceding which it resembles in size and habit. 

 In Hokkaido and Saghalien the well-known S. sorbifolia 

 is a shrub from three to five feet tall with erect shoots 

 which terminate in rigidly upright wide-branched 

 panicles eighteen inches high. I retain a vivid recol- 

 lection of the picture this shrub presented during August 

 in Saghalien. There, on the margins of grassy 

 swamps and swampy woodlands and by the side of 

 streams and ponds, this plant luxuriates in great 

 abundance; its pyramids of white flowers with their 

 prominent stamens, reared on rigid stems three to 

 five feet tall and subtended by numerous large deep 

 green leaves, presented a never-to-be-forgotten spec- 

 tacle in that lonely, silent land. 



The other two species (5. assurgens from western 

 China and S. stellipila from northern Japan) are also 



