RARE TREES AND SHRUBS IN THE ARNOLD ARBORETUM, U.S.A. 35 



by the frost. Taxus canadensis is also hardy, but too trailing 

 so that the Japanese Yew is considered the best. Betinospora 

 aurea is much used, sometimes as an isolated bush, and often 

 for pruned hedges ; it is quite hardy and enduring. 



Such is the brief record of my notes among the new and rare 

 trees and shrubs at and around the Arnold Arboretum. Much 

 could be said also of the common shrubs at the same place, as 

 large beds are made there of the very commonest materials, and 

 these are often not the least effective. Good examples of similar 

 plantations are to be seen in the Boston new-laid parks and 

 elsewhere. 



HYBRID NARCISSI. 

 By Rev. G. H. Engleheart, M.A., F.R.H.S. 

 [Read April 10, 1894.] 



Little apology is needed for the fragmentary and tentative 

 character of a paper which touches upon the subject of Hybridity. 

 For, notwithstanding the great and growing attention devoted 

 to it during the last half-century, it will need the piecemeal 

 monographs of generations, and a master-mind for their co- 

 ordination, to disentangle and reduce this vast and complex 

 study to ascertained law. Especially to the worker among bulbous 

 plants knowledge of this kind must come very slowly. The 

 experiments and inferences of a dozen years have but made me 

 feel how much I require the outcome of at least another dozen 

 in order to prepare a paper worthy to be called instruc- 

 tive. Seedling Narcissi take from four to six years to bloom, 

 and usually two or three more to develop their mature character 

 of size, form, and colour. And they must be flowered in 

 hundreds at least, since an abundance not only of time but of 

 material is necessary for the examination of particulars enough 

 for the establishment of trustworthy inductions. A few glean- 

 ings from this small specialist's work of mine I can lay before 

 you to-day ; but the flowering of my plants becomes fuller and 

 fuller of interest and enlightenment spring by spring, and the 

 observations of the present season, while they sometimes 



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