47 
length and not much more than half an inch in width, and small flow- 
ers in few-flowered clusters. The flowers do not make much show 
when seen from a distance, but on close examination show that they 
are green on the outside, dark purple, with a flve-lobed crown at the 
base on the inside, and that they are pleasantly fragrant. The plants 
in the Arboretum occasionally produce their slender pod-like fruits, but 
the plant can be easily propagated by root suckers and it might be- 
come common if better known. 
Genista tinctoria. Of the small, yellow-flowered shrubs of the Pea 
Family, which are such a feature of the flora of southern and south- 
eastern Europe and are so highly valued in the gardens of western 
Europe, the best known in Massachusetts is the Woad Wax Genista 
tinctoria. Brought early from England as a garden plant it long ago 
escaped from a Salem garden and has spread over and ruined hundreds 
of acres in Essex County. Planted in the Arboretum it has spread 
among the native plants like dwarf Roses and Goldenrods which form 
a considerable part of the ground cover among the Hickories and Oaks, 
and now enlivens the valley through which the Valley Road extends 
from Centre to South Street. There is a taller variety with larger 
flowers (var. elatior). Much more beautiful and the handsomest of these 
plants which have been tried here is Cytisus nigricans, a native of 
northern Italy, Austria and Hungary, and now in bloom in the Shrub 
Collection. No small plant now in the Arboretum is more distinct and 
beautiful. As it grows here it is a compact, round-topped bush from 
two to three feet tall and broad, differing from most of the related 
plants in the arrangement of the flowers which are borne in long erect 
racemes terminal on branches of the year; they are bright yellow and 
produced in great profusion. 
Rosa Helenae, by some persons considered the handsomest of the 
Roses discovered in China by Wilson, has never flowered as well here 
as it is flowering now. It is a large shrub with slender arching stems 
furnished sparingly with small red spines and many-flowered clusters 
of pure white delicately fragrant flowers an inch and a quarter in 
diameter. It can be seen to advantage now in the Shrub Collection and 
well deserves a place in every collection of single-flowered Roses how- 
ever small. Growing near it is a white-flowered form of a native Rose, 
Rosa suffulata alba, which came to the Arboretum several years ago 
from Minneapolis near which place it was discovered. The pink-flow- 
ered type is a common western plant widely distributed over the 
prairies from Minnesota to Montana and southward to Missouri and 
Texas. It is a comparatively recent discovery and was first called 
Rosa pratincola. Little cultivated it is well worth the attention of 
Rose lovers. 
Magnolia virginiana, or as it is more often called M. glauca, opened 
its fragrant cup-shaped flowers a few weeks ago and will continue to 
open them until midsummer. The dark green leaves, silvery white 
below, are more beautiful than those of any other plant which is hardy 
in this climate, and remain on the branches without change of color 
until the beginning of winter. The flowers of no other native tree 
