CHINESE TREES AND SHRUBS. 



217 



(Ae. indica) and the North Chinese one {Ae. chinensis). These three, 

 all now in cultivation, form a distinct and beautiful group, and 

 Wilson's species is probably the finest. I have a dried panicle of 

 flowers 16 inches high and 4 inches through at the base. 



Wilson found about twenty Hollies, of which I think Ilex Pernyi 

 will prove most attractive in gardens. Ilex yunnanensis is also a 

 very pleasing, compact, small-leaved evergreen, and Ilex pedunculosa 

 is remarkable in bearing its red fruits on a stalk ij inch long. 



Corylus chinensis is of the same group of Hazels as the Constan- 

 tinople or Turkish Hazel, and is likely to prove a fine tree, very distinct 

 from the common type of bushy Hazel. 



Visitors to the South of Europe and the Grecian Isles will be 

 very familiar with two or three species of Pistacia that grow there. 

 There is Pistacia vera, which gives the well-known Pistachio nuts; 

 P. Terebinthus, which yields a sweet-smeUing resinous juice used in 

 medicine and for flavouring ; and P. Lentiscus, which produces a resinous 

 substance known as mastic, used as a dentifrice. Not one of these, 

 however, is genuinely hardy, but Wilson has introduced a new species, 

 P. chinensis, which is evidently perfectly hardy. The Chinese eat 

 the young shoots and leaves boiled, much as we eat Spinach. The 

 Chinese eat such fearsome substances that it would be rash to infer 

 from this that a new vegetable has been obtained. But Mr. Wilson 

 has told me the leaves turn such a gorgeous crimson before falling as 

 to make a large tree one of the most wonderful of autumnal pictures 

 in Western China. 



Populus lasiocarpa and Salix magnifica are two of the marvels 

 Western China has revealed. Both are remarkable for a size of leaf 

 transcending anything among Poplars and Willows we knew of before. 

 I have gathered leaves of the Poplar 14 inches long by 9 inches wide ; 

 and the Willow has borne them 10 inches long by 8 inches wide — 

 truly extraordinary dimensions in the genus Salix. The Poplar is 

 noticeable, too, for the rich red of the stalk, midrib, and veins of the 

 leaf. This tree will probably be seen at its best on its own roots. 

 I have been told by Mr. Wilson that he once came to a little Chinese 

 farm where the farmer had made an enclosure for his animals by 

 driving stakes in the ground ; these were of Populus lasiocarpa, and 

 they had taken root freely. 



Pyrus Folgneri is a very elegant tree, more nearly aUied to the 

 Whitebeams {Pyrus Aria &c.) than to any other of the old groups 

 of Pyrus. During the recent craze for cutting up genera, a new genus 

 called Micromeles has been cut away from Pyrus, and to this P. 

 Folgneri belongs. The tree is variable in habit. A tree in the Coombe 

 Wood nursery last year showed an almost Willow-like grace, and its 

 leaves were vividly white beneath (Fig. 47). 



Cunninghamia sinensis, the Araucaria-like conifer, has long been 

 known in gardens, having been introduced in 1804. It has never 

 been a great success under cultivation, and the finest trees are only 

 to be seen in the south-western counties. Wilson found immense 



