THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
43 
pithy first year wood provides a weapon for young Nimrod, the 
elder-gun or pop gini. The old Romans constructed a musi- 
cal instrument, the sambuca from its wood and this circumstance 
gives the genus the name of Sambiicus. 
Hartford, Conn. 
AILANTHUS. 
By Prof. \A^illiam Whitman Bailey. 
In describing this exotic tree, now so well established and so 
familiar, the late Dr. Asa Gray said : ''It is called by Arabs the 
tree of Heaven, but is redolent of any other odors than those of 
Paradise." His remarks has reference to the atrocious smell of 
the staminate or male tree when in flower. The pistillate tree, 
for some reason less often seen, is on the contrary odorless. One 
knowing this, can freely grow the tree with all its advantages and 
noiie of its drawbacks. The good qualities consist in the extreme 
rapidity of growth, the comparative cleanliness and freedom from 
attack of insects and the picturesque and almost tropical beauty of 
the plant. 
So vigorous is the tree, and so energetic in spreading itself, that 
the future New Zealander fresh from taking Kodak views of 
St. Paul's cathedral, and gazing meditatively upon what remains 
of our Wall street, would, it is surmised, find New York over- 
grown with ailanthus. So light are the seeds—or rather fruits, 
winged like those of the ash, that they fly about every w^iere, and 
sprout on roofs, in gutters and at every point of vantage, 
"Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed 
The air is delicate." 
Let a street or park be deserted and at once it is over-run with 
ailanthus. Indeed, the tree has been employed on the western 
plains to insure a rapid arboreous growth. 
It has been spoken of as a clean tree, little attacked by insects. 
While that is true of some parts of the country, about New York 
in its wider sense, we find the ailanthus fed upon by a large, and 
to the nervous, a repellant looking caterpillar. This is the hand- 
some larva of Attaciis Cynthia, the well known silk worm of Japan 
and China and o^ne of the most superb of moths, measuring sev- 
