12 Department Circular 383, U. S. Dept, of Agriculture 
other purposes. The countries of eastern Asia and western and 
southwestern Europe might yield types worthy of further trial in 
this connection. 
CHINESE TIMBER CHINQUAPIN 
(Castanea henryi (Skan) Rehder and Wilson) 
Little is known of this chinquapin except what has been published 
in comparatively recent times in some scattered botanical periodi- 
cals. It is known by various names—Castanopsis henryi, Castanea 
sativa, C. vilmoriniana, and C. fargesii. Castanea henryi has been 
known to botanists for 18 or 20 years. It is not found in general cul- 
tivation and has.been introduced but sparingly into arboreta and 
botanical gardens. (Fig. 5.) According to E. H. Wilson, Assistant 
Director of the Arnold Arboretum, C. henryi is growing there and 
without sign of disease. A specimen planted by the late Doctor 
Van Fleet is growing at the United States Plant Introduction Gar- 
den at Bell, Md. This specimen was propagated from scion wood 
received through the courtesy of Prof. C. 5. Sargent, of the Arnold 
Arboretum. This fine chinquapin was found by Wilson at a number 
of places in central China, and Sargent says*® that the species is 
distributed from the neighborhood of Ningpo through the valley of 
the Yangtze River as far west as Mount Omei. On the mountains 
of western Hupeh and of eastern Szechwan it is common in woods. 
According to Sargent this chinquapin grows to a larger size than any other 
Chinese species, and trees from 20 to 25 meters tall with trunks 1 to 3 meters 
are common. Occasionally trees 30 meters tall and 5 meters in girth of trunk 
are met with. The leaves are green on both surfaces and entirely glabrous 
except for a few appressed hairs on the under side of the primary and sec- 
ondary veins. All the fruits we have seen contain a solitary nut, but it is 
probable that occasionally two occur, as they do in Castanea pumila Miller. 
Van Fleet, in one of the latest of his publications, referring to 
this chestnut, said: 
Recently there has been brought to light in the interior of China a chest- 
nut species that may restore our timber production of this most desirable 
wood, if it should prove immune to disease. Unlike other Old World chest- 
nuts, which form relatively small trees, this species, Castanea vilmoriniana 
(now known as Castanea henryi), grows 80 to 100 feet high with a straight, 
symmetrical trunk well adapted for all timber purposes. The nuts, according 
to the scant herbarium material that has reached this country, are of little 
consequence except for propagation, as they are only slightly larger than 
those of our wild chinquapins. This species iS now established at the Arnold 
Arboretum near Boston, Mass., and scions worked on C. mollissima stocks 
ape ee vigorously growing at Bell Experiment Plot, making fine upright 
shoots. 
Meyer, in exploration work carried on just prior to his death, 
spent considerable time near Ichang in Hupeh Province. Among 
some of the last collections sent in by him were specimens of what 
may have been this chestnut. This material, however, failed to 
grow. Although Gravatt, of the Office of Forest Pathology, Bureau 
of Plant Industry, reports that he has infected this species with 
blight, from the fact that the disease has not been reported on the 
specimen at the Arnold Arboretum nor on the one at Bell, Md., it 
may, like our native chinquapin, be a resistant type. Such a fine 
*Sarount, C. S. PLANTAR WILSONIANAR, Vol. 8, p. 197. 1916, 
“Van FiLEeT, W. CHESTNUT WORK AT BELL EX orth, ; 
Assoc, Rpt. Proc, 11th Ann. Meet., =a, 16-21, 192000 TLO™ a aoe 
