23 
arching branches, and is perhaps the most beautiful Crabapple in the 
Arboretum. The tendency of M. florihunda to produce hybrids is well 
shown in one of the parks of the city of Rochester, N. Y., in which 
there are growing several trees raised from seeds gathered several 
years ago from one plant. These Rochester seedlings now produce 
abundant crops of fruit; this varies on different trees from the size of 
a small pea to an inch or an inch and a quarter in diameter. On some 
of the trees it is bright yellow, on others bright red and on others 
red and yellow. There is less difference in the flowers, but the leaves 
vary on the different plants in shape and in the absence of the cover- 
ing of hairs. Most of these trees are worth descriptive names which 
have not yet been given to them, and show what endless work is be- 
fore nurserymen who endeavor to raise Crabapples from the seeds of 
plants growing in large collections. Malus atrosanguinea, judging by 
its habit, is another hybrid of M. floribunda, from which it differs in 
the bright red color of the flowers. Very little is known about the 
origin of this plant. It is said to have originated in the Spath Nur- 
sery in Berlin, and has been growing since 1889 in the Arboretum when 
it was obtained from the Knaphill Nursery at Woking, England. There 
are two trees in the Peter's Hill group and they have never before 
been so beautiful, and no other Crabapple has such brilliant red flowers. 
Lilacs. When the Arboretum was founded, in addition to Syringa 
vulgaris and its varieties, there were only in this country the Himalayan 
S. emodi, the Hungarian S. Josikaea, and the better known S. persica. 
There are now growing in the Arboretum twenty-five species of Lilacs 
and four hybrids and their forms. Three or four species found in re- 
mote parts of China and described by botanists have not yet been in- 
troduced into gardens, and by the use of some of the recently intro- 
duced species plant breeders may be able to produce new races which 
may add new and valuable varieties for the makers of gardens. 
Syringa persica was known in England as early as 1658 and has been 
for a long time an inhabitant of American gardens. It is a beautiful 
hardy plant with slender, drooping, wide-spreading branches, narrower 
leaves than those of the common Lilacs and small, fragrant, lavender- 
colored flowers in short compact clusters. There is a variety with 
white flowers and another with lacinately lobed leaves. For years it 
was universally believed that because Linnaeus had named it Syringa 
persica that it was a native of Persia or of some country adjacent to 
Persia. Meyer collecting in China in 1915 found quantities of a Lilac 
covering hillsides in Kansu, and plants raised from seeds of this Lilac 
have flowered and proved identical with the lobed-leaf form of S. per- 
sica. As there is no wild specimen of the Persian Lilac in any of the 
great herbaria collected in Persia or other parts of western Asia it is 
probable that the Persian Lilac is really a Chinese plant which was 
early carried into the western part of the continent. 
The first hybrid Lilac appeared in the Botanic Garden at Rouen in 
1810, and was the result of crossing Syringa vulgaris and S. persica. 
It is one of the most valuai)le of all Lilacs and grows into a bush ten 
feet high and broad and of rather open habit. It is very hardy and 
blooms freely every year, and deserves a place in every garden where 
Lilacs are grown. The flowers resemble those of the Persian Lilacs, 
