l/^l DESCRIPTION OF THE MUSEUM. 



tree or Canadian bonduc, gfmhocladus cana- 

 densis (i) are more particularly worthy of notice. 

 This plantation is terminated by an avenue of the 

 ailanthus or Japan varnish (2), a superb tree first 

 described by M. Desfontaines in the Memoirs of 

 the Academy of Sciences for 1786. All the trunks 

 bear on one side the impression of the frost 

 by which they were injured in the spring of 1 787. 



The last square is planted with trees which 

 bloom in the spring. It was of twice its present 

 extent before the building of the bridge, when 

 a part of it was sacrificed to the area on the 

 quay, and the trees were transplanted to a square 

 at the bottom of the corresponding avenue. There 

 still remain the yellow pavia, pavia lutea ; the 

 Ohio buck eye, P. Ohioensis; and the red flower- 

 ing horse chesnut, cesculus Jlore rubro^ a very 



(1) This is a dioecious tree, remarkable for its double winged leaves, 

 three feet long, and twenty inches broad : its branches being few, it 

 has in the winter the appearance of a dead stock, and hence it has been 

 named by the French Canadians chicot, or stump-tree. We have only 

 the male stock. 



(2) M. Desfontaines, who observed its fructification for the first time 

 at M. Lemonnier's at Versailles, determined it to be a new genus of the 

 family of the terebinthaceae, and published a description of it in the 

 Memoirs of the 'Academy of Sciences in 1786. He gave it the name of 

 aylanthus, which it bears at Amboyna, and which signifies tree of 

 heaven : it was first designated under the name of Japan varnish, 

 because it was believed to furnish the fine Japanese varnish. This 

 denomination has been preserved, though improper ; it agrees better 

 with the rhus vcrnix of Linnaeus. 



