Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. X 
NO. 15 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. OCTOBER 24. 1924 
Autumn Colors. This is one of the most interesting times of the 
year to visit the Arboretum which is gay now with the autumn colors 
of many leaves. Those of a few plants have already turned and begun 
to fall, and others are practically as green as they were in summer. 
The most brilliant color made in the early autumn is by the native 
Red Maple, the Ampelopsis or Virginia Creeper, and Phellodendron 
amurense. This last is a small tree from the Amoor region of eastern 
Siberia and is chiefly interesting as the type of a small genus with a 
few species of trees of eastern Asia of the Rue Family, and for its 
peculiar thick, ridged, pale, cork-like bark. Early in October the 
leaves turn to a bright clear yellow which is hardly equalled in beauty 
by the yellow autumn leaves of any other tree. This beauty is short- 
lived and the branches are already bare. This is perhaps one of the 
rarest trees in the Arboretum and certainly the rarest of the five 
species which are now well established here. Phellodendron japonicum 
appears to have been raised first in the United States in the Botanic 
Garden at Cambridge, and the male and female plants were moved 
from there to the Bussey Institution in its very early days and are 
still flourishing and producing their fruit annually. Two plants of 
Phellodendron amurense came a little later direct to the Arboretum 
from the Imperial Botanic Garden at St. Petersburg in small pots and 
unfortunately are both of one sex and have never produced flowers. 
The Sassafras is just now, too, one of the most beautiful trees in 
New England woods and by roadsides as the leaves have turned or 
are turning orange or yellow more or less tinged with red. The 
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