NEWEK DECrotlOUS TREES AND SHKUBS. 407 



Mr. Downing among the shrubs. It is in reality a large tree 

 when grown, forty to fifty feet high, with pinnate leaves, and 

 producing large branches of cream colored flowers in August. 

 It is quite distinctive in winter, by the dark green bark of its 

 young wood ; and in summer by the dark blue green of its 

 foliage. Near Paris there are some trees sixty feet high. It 

 grows rapidly and is peculiarly adapted to the United States 

 from one remarkable property of its foliage, which is the power 

 it has to retain both its leaves and their color in the very hot- 

 test and driest seasons, when locusts and acacias and other 

 pinnated-leaved leguminacece are apt to lose their foliage. 



The flowers, it is said, in China make yellow dye of so super- 

 ior a color, that it is reserved exclusively for the use of the 

 Imperial family. 



S. pendula (Pendulous or Weeping sophora), is more com- 

 monly met with, perhaps, than the upright sophora, though 

 even this variety is very rare. It has long pendulous shoots ; 

 gi-afted near the ground it becomes a mere straggling plant, 

 but, ten, to twenty feet high, we hardly know anything more 

 ornamental or striking ; even in winter, the long slender 

 branches of beautiful bright green render it most attractive. ' 



There is a third variety, variegata, but the color of the leaf 

 is sickly, and we do not consider it desirable, except for arbore- 

 tums. 



Pyrus. Mountain Ash. 



A very pretty and marked addition to the varieties hereto- 

 fore known, and described is Pyrus pendula (Weeping moun- 

 tain ash), with extremely pendulous branches bending quite to 

 the ground, and then rambling along it if not stopped ; a most 

 rapid grower, more so, we think, than the common mountain 

 ash, and a very great bloomer. 



P. nana (Dwarf mountain ash). — This is a very stunted 

 variety of slow, close growth, but quite remarkable for the 

 luxuriant corymbs of coral berries in the Autumn. 



P. quercifolia, a distinct variety with large, hoary, oak leaves ; 

 P. striata (Striped-leaved), P- vestita (White-leaved), the 

 young shoots and the under part of the leaves being as clearly 



