12 
and of such good flavor that it has to be picked in the Arboretum when 
only half grown to prevent the breaking down of the branches by ma- 
rauding visitors. Unlike those of other Pear-trees the leaves turn 
bright scarlet before falling. This is an old inhabitant of the Arbore- 
tum, and the large tree on the left of the Forest Hills Road near the 
entrance is still covered with flowers. 
Pyrus Gallery ana and its varieties raised from seeds collected by 
Wilson in western China have now for a week been covered with flowers. 
They are growing with other Chinese Pear-trees on the southern slope 
of Bussey Hill, and are narrow, shapely, pyramidal trees now about 
twenty feet high. The flowers are smaller than those of the other 
Chinese species, and the globose brown fruit is not much more than a third 
of an inch in diameter. To American pomologists Pyrus Calleryana is 
now of more interest than the other Pear-trees raised at the Arboretum 
from seeds collected by Wilson in China, for they believe that they have 
found in it a stock on which to graft garden pears more resistant to 
blight than any which has yet been found, and the seed produced in 
the Arboretum is in great demand by the Department of Agriculture 
of the United States and by nurserymen. 
Pyrus serotina, another Chinese Pear-tree introduced by Wilson from 
western China, is also in flower. To students of cultivated plants this 
is a tree of particular interest for this native of the mountain forests of 
western China is now believed to be the origin of the brown or yellow- 
ish, round, hard and gritty Sand Pears which in many varieties the 
Japanese have cultivated from time immemorial and which must have 
been introduced into Japan probably by way of Korea. In the early 
days of western intercourse with Japan many varieties of the Sand 
Pear were brought to the United States and Europe, but except for the 
beauty of their flowers and fruits they have proved to be of little value, 
for the fruit is so hard and so full of grit that it is not even worth cook- 
ing. It was probably forms of the Sand Pear which produced the Leconte 
and Kieffer Pears from which much was at one time expected in this 
country, especially in the southern states, but which have proved so sus- 
ceptible to blight that the cultivation of these trees has now been gener- 
ally abandoned. The flowers of Pyrus serotina are larger and more 
beautiful than those of other Pear-trees, but there is little beauty in 
the small brown fruit; and the habit of the tree with its long spreading 
branches forming an open irregular head is not particularly attractive. 
Prunus incisa has been as full of flowers as it has been every spring 
for the last six years, although many flower-buds have been killed on 
other Japanese Cherry-trees by the cold of the past winter. This 
Cherry is a native of Japan and is abundant on the eastern and south- 
ern slopes of Fuji-san and on the Hakone Mountains. It is a large 
shrub or under favorable conditions a small tree twenty-flve or thirty 
feet high; the flowers appear before the deeply cut leaves in drooping 
clusters; their calyx is bright red; the petals are white or occasionally 
tinged with rose color, and the anthers are bright yellow. The petals 
fall early, but the calyx, which gradually grows brighter in color, re- 
mains for some time on the young fruit and is showy. 
