Celtis 931 



habit, usually growing on sand dunes, rocky places, and dry hills and mountains, and 

 widely distributed in the United States from Delaware and Pennsylvania to Utah 

 and Colorado, is considered by some to be a variety of this species, but is probably 

 distinct. 



This species is widely distributed, occurring in the north from Quebec to 

 Manitoba, and extending southward to Louisiana, Missouri, Kansas, and North 

 Carolina. Its exact distribution is not clearly known, as it has been confused with 

 other species ; but it appears to be commoner in the north and east, while C. crassi- 

 folia is most prevalent in the Mississippi valley and west of the Alleghanies. It is 

 replaced by C, mississippiensis in the extreme south, and by C. reticulata in the dry 

 regions of the far west. 



In New England it is a low round-headed tree, and is well depicted by Sargent 

 in Garden and Forest, iii. 39, fig. 43 (1890), which represents a tree growing close 

 to the seashore in Massachusetts. It is not common east of the Hudson,^ but on the 

 banks of this river grows with a slender trunk and long graceful pendulous branches. 

 Amongst North American species none, perhaps, retains its foliage green and fresh 

 so late in the season. (A. H.) 



The American Nettle Tree or Hackberry was introduced into England in 1656 

 by Tradescant, and the first description of the species, made from a tree cultivated 

 in England, was published in Ray's Historia Plantarum, ii. 19 17. It seems to be 

 the only species of Celtis which bears our climate well enough to be worth planting, 

 but is so rare in cultivation that very few people know it, and it is rarely found in 

 nurseries. 



I have found it easy to raise from seed, and though the seedlings grow slowly 

 and are somewhat susceptible to frost when young, it will, as it grows older, endure 

 a greater degree of cold in winter than C. australis. The largest tree mentioned by 

 Loudon was one at Syon, which, in 1838, was 54 feet high and 7 feet in girth. 

 This cannot be the same as one which now grows there, which, according to the 

 garden catalogue, was 50 feet by 3 feet 3 inches in 1849, and when I measured it in 

 1903, was 60 feet by 4 feet 4 inches. There is a fine tree in Kew Gardens, which, 

 owing to its being crowded on one side by an evergreen oak, leans considerably, and 

 is about 45 to 50 feet by 6 feet 4 inches. This is probably one of the original trees 

 of the Kew Arboretum, though not mentioned by Loudon, unless, as is possible, he 

 mistook it for C. australis. 



The finest and best-shaped tree, however, that we know of, is one at West Dean 

 Park (Plate 251), which is probably the one mentioned by Loudon as then fourteen 

 years planted and 19 feet high. Now it is 50 feet by 5^^ feet, and when I saw it in 

 July 1906 was bearing fruit abundantly. This tree evidently lives to a consider- 

 able age, as I saw one in the Botanic Gardens at Padua which was planted in 1 760, 

 and measures no less than 32 metres high by 2 metres in girth, with a fine clean bole. 

 Henry saw a good specimen in the Botanic Garden at Copenhagen. 



(H. J. E.) 



' Garden and Forest, i. 465 (1888). 



