78 THE GAD EN ee ee 
MarcH, 1916 
growing ten feet or more high with thin spread- 
ing and arching branches and rose-pink flowers. 
Perhaps the best known of these Asiatic 
Crabapples is MW. floribunda, which was intro- 
duced about 1853 by von Siebold, to Leiden in 
Holland, yet its native country remains un- 
known to this day. Present day Japanese 
botanists seem unacquainted with this plant. 
and both they and Japanese nurserymen con- 
fuse it with the Parkman Crab, and during my 
trip in Japan I never met with it. However, 
since our gardens are in fortunate possession 
of it we can waive the more academic ques- 
tion of its habitat. It is a broad, round- 
topped, tree-like shrub sometimes twenty-five 
feet tall, and as much in diameter, with slender 
arching and pendent branchlets. The clustered 
flowers are pure white when expanded and 
bright rose color in bud, and as they open in 
succession the contrast is singularly beautiful. 
The fruit is about the size of a pea, yellowish 
or yellow-brown and long persistent but not 
attractive except to birds who appear espe- 
cially fond of it. 
In gardens all the species of Malus hybridize 
freely and the group offers a field of immense 
interest to those who will breed and select the 
offspring. Some years ago there appeared in 
the Arnold Arboretum among a batch of pre- 
sumed seedlings of M. floribunda a very dis- 
tinct plant which has been named WM. 
Arnoldiana. It is probably a hybrid between 
M. floribunda and M. baccata, but whatever 
its origin it is certainly one of the most lovely 
of all Crabapples. The habit is similar to that 
of M. floribunda but the flowers though of the 
same color are one half larger and the fruit 
too is much bigger. A friend of mine who 
lives at Winchester, Mass., has a fine specimen 
of this hybrid growing under the lee of his 
house and no one has yet been able to per- 
suade him that there is any other Crabapple 
which approximates to this in beauty. 
At the same time as Siebold introduced the 
gem IM. floribunda he also introduced another 
Crabapple (M. Sieboldii, better known as MM, 
toringo). This is a low dense shrub of sprawl- 
ing habit with lobed leaves, small flowers, white 
tinged with rose in color and small yellow 
fruit. It is really a scrubby form of a species 
widely distributed in Japan and horticulturally 
inferior to its real type, now known as var. 
arboreséens, which is a small tree with ascend- 
ing and spreading branches, twiggy branchlets 
and fruit yellow or red on different individuals. 
Another variety (calocarpa), raised from seeds 
sent in 1890, to the Arnold Arboretum from 
Japan by Dr. William Sturgis Bigelow, has 
handsome bright red fruits half an inch in 
diameter and is in fruit the most strikingly 
beautiful of all Crabapples. 
The well known Siberian Crab (Malus baccata), the hardiest of all the Crab- 
The tree is extremely handsome in 
apples, is a reliable stock for grafting. 
flower and in fruit 
In many a suburban garden of America the Weep- - 
ing Cherry may be seen as a lawn ornament, often 
grafted on a standard. How much better when grown 
naturally as an individual tree on its own roots. (See 
preceding page) 
Differing from the tree form of I. Sieboldii 
only in certain technical matters is M. zwmi 
which was introduced to cultivation by Profes- 
sor C. 8. Sargent who collected seeds in Japan 
in 1892. This too is a very desirable small tree 
with fragrant white flowers and small yellow 
or red fruits. It is common on the slopes of 
Mt. Fuji and on the shores of Lake Chuzenji 
in the Nikko region. 
Most of the orchard fruits grown in the coun- 
tries of the Far Hast have been obtained by 
long cultivation from species indigenous to 
China and have not common origin with the 
same kinds of fruits cultivated in this country 
and in Hurope. The Apple of that region is an 
example. It is only very recently that science 
has become acquainted with the source of the 
Apple of China and Japan although under 
various names it has been in cultivation in the 
Occident for some sixty years. This Apple (J. 
prunifolia var. rinki) grows wild in the moun- 
tainous parts of central China where I was for- 
tunate enough to discover it in the spring of 
1901, and later secured seeds which resulted in 
its successful introduction to our gardens. Pre- 
vious to this discovery it was known only from 
plants cultivated in Japan, and by most hot- 
anists was considered a very doubtful plant. 
From Japan it was introduced to Hurope about 
1854, aul distributed by von Siebold as Malus 
ringo. In habit this species resembles the com- 
mon Apple but its leaves are rather different, 
the flower stalks are much longer and the fruit 
is not impressed at the summit. As a fruit tree 
the Chinese Apple is cultivated in central and 
western China, from river level, where the cli- 
mate is very warm, to altitudes of 9,500 feet in 
tie more mountainous parts, where a severe 
climate obtains. In northern China and Korea 
it is cultivated sparingly over a wide area. The 
fruit is small, seldom more than 1144 inches 
in diameter and slightly longer than broad, of 
a pleasant bitter-sweet flavor and varies in 
color from greenish to greenish yellow and is 
rosy on one side. Occasionally it is nearly all 
red. Formerly this Chinese Apple was culti- 
vated in Japan for its fruit, but since the intro- 
duction of varieties of the European Apple its 
cultivation as a fruit tree has been discontinued. 
There are other species too of much merit 
and beauty and several new ones whose value 
we do not fully know, but there is one so dis- 
tinct in habit and with a field of usefulness so 
peculiarly its own that it must not be omitted 
even in this incomplete enumeration, and that 
is M. Sargentii. This species is of dwarf stat- 
ure with the branches rigid and spreading, and 
the lower ones flat on the ground, and is emi- 
nently suitable for covering slopes and banks. 
The flowers in umbellate clusters are saucer- 
shaped, round and of the purest white and 
these are followed by masses of wine-colored 
fruit which is covered with a slight bloom. 
In its habit, its flowers and in its fruit it is 
very distinct from all other species. We owe this 
valuable addition to Professor C. S. Sargent, 
who discovered it in fruit and sent seeds in 
1892, from near Mororan in Hokkaido, Japan. 
In this group of Asiatic Cre Paree there are 
trees for the avenue, park or garden, shrubs for 
the lawn or border and others suitable for 
slopes and banks—all absolutely hardy in the 
coldest parts of New England and each and 
every one may be depended upon to produce 
every spring season a wealth of blossoms in 
veritable cascades. The plants grow quickly in 
good loamy soil and many of them begin to 
flower and produce fruit when only a few years 
old. They will thrive anywhere that the com- 
mon Apple will grow if attention be paid to 
keeping them free from the scale insects which 
are destructive to all plants of the Apple tribe. 
This may be accomplished readily by spraying 
with the same antidotes as recommended in the 
case of the Japanese Cherries. 
[Next month: Lilacdom] 
Malus spectabilis, well known in cultivation, has not yet been found wild. It 
makes a tree twenty to thirty feet high and is covered by a wondrous profusion 
of bloom. 
