3 
Davidia, Eucommia, and Ehretia acuminata. As space permits reports 
on the losses caused by the winter in other groups of plants will appear 
in later issues of these bulletins. 
Early-fiowering Shrubs. Fortunately frost has not injured this spring 
the buds of many of the trees and shrubs which open their flowers in 
April and several of these have been unusually fine this year and have 
remained in good condition for a longer time than usual. After some 
of the Willows the earliest shrubs in the Arboretum to bloom this 
year were the Buffalo Berry {Shepherdia argentea) and the Leather- 
wood {Dirca palustris). The latter began to bloom on the 7th of April, 
nearly three weeks earlier than last year, and unfaded flowers are still 
to be seen on this eastern American shrub. A large group of these 
plants on the right-hand side of the Bussey Hill Road is one of the 
interesting early spring features of the Arboretum. The flower-buds 
of garden Peach-trees have been generally killed in Massachusetts by 
the cold of the winter, but the wild Peach-tree of northern China 
(Prunus Davidiana) opened its uninjured flower-buds in the Arboretum 
on the 15th of April. This is an attractive small tree with erect 
branches and lustrous red-brown bark. As a flowering tree in this 
climate, however, it is hardly worth a place in gardens for the 
flowers open so early that they are ruined by late frosts. The fruit is 
small and of no value, but pomologists are interested in this tree as a 
stock on which to work the common Peach-tree for it is hardy north 
of the region where Peaches flourish. 
Early-flowering Rhododendrons. The bright rose-colored flowers of 
the Siberian and Mongolian Rhododendron dahuricum opened this year 
as early as the 10th of April and remained in good condition until the 
end of the month. It is a small shrub with dark green leaves which 
in this climate remain on the branches until late in the winter, and it 
would be a good garden plant here if the flowers were not so often 
ruined by late frosts. There is a variety sempervirens with more per- 
sistent leaves and darker-colored flowers which has bloomed this year 
with the species on the upper side of Azalea Path. In the Rhododendron 
Collection at the base of Hemlock Hill a group of a hybrid of 
R. dahuricum with the Himalayan R. ciliatum, known as R. praecoXy 
Early Gem, is now covered Vs^ith flowers. This is a perfectly hardy 
plant but, unfortunately, blooms too early in this climate and the flow- 
ers are generally injured by frost. More valuable here is the north 
China R. mucronulatum which this year began to flower a little later 
than R. dahuricum and is still covered with its pale rose-colored flowers. 
It is a tall, hardy, deciduous-leaved shrub which has flowered 
freely in the Arboretum every spring for the last twenty years. The 
flowers open before the leaves appear and are not injured by spring 
frosts. This year they have been in good condition for nearly three 
weeks. In this climate this is the most valuable of the Rhododendrons 
and Azaleas which bloom in April. 
Early-flowering Magnolias. The flower-buds and the flowers of the 
Japanese Magnolia steltata, M. Kobus and its variety borealiSy and of 
