8 
red; the petals are white or oecasionafTy tmg-ed with rose color, and the 
anthers are bright yellow. The petals fall early but the calyx, which 
gradually grows brighter in color, remains for some time on the young 
fruit and is showy. Prunus incisa has been perfectly hardy here and 
none of the flower-buds were injured by the cold of last winter. It 
has the advantage, too, of flowering while still a small shrub. This 
Cherry has remained rare in American and European gardens and ap- 
pears to be still little known. 
Plums. The flower-buds of few Plum-trees have been injured and 
these trees promise to bloom unusually well this year. The first to 
flower have been the Canadian Cherry {Prunus nigra) and the Chinese 
Prunus salicina, the parent of the so-called Japanese Plums of pom- 
ologists. These will soon be followed by Prunus alleghaniana, P. am- 
ericana, P. Watsonii, P. Munsoniana, P. hortulana, P. domestica, and 
several others. The Plums are planted with the Apricots, which are 
also beginning to bloom, next the Cherries, near the junction of the 
Meadow and Valley Roads. 
A pink-flowered Pear-tree. Among the Pear-trees raised from the 
seeds collected by Wilson in western China there are plants in the 
Peter’s Hill Nursery and on the southern slope of Bussey Hill which 
have bloomed this year for the first time and have been conspicuous 
for their pale pink flowers which' open from rose-colored buds. The 
flowers of all described species of Pyrus are pure white and this pink- 
flowered form is an interesting addition to the list of trees with showy 
flowers. It has been considered a variety of Pyrus Calleryana but 
differs from that Pear-tree in its smoother red brown bark, in the 
dense coat of tomentum which covers the branchlets, and in its earlier 
pink flowers not more than three-cfuarters of an inch in diameter, and,, 
it is possible that when the fruit is known, it may prove a new spe- 
cies. The Chinese Pears have handsome foliage and beautiful flowers, 
and they are all excellent hardy ornamental trees in the Arboretum. 
They will bloom well this year, and the large specimen of P. ovoidea 
near the Forest Hills entrance has been covered with flowers during 
the week. 
Some Maple Flowers. It is not often that the Sugar Maple {Acer 
saccharum) in Greater Boston so completely covers itself as it has this 
spring with its long gracefully drooping clusters of pale yellow flowers 
which early in May make this tree, although now less conspicuous than 
in the autumn, a charming feature 'of the northern forest. A true lover 
of the country, life in cities and their suburbs has little attraction for 
the Sugar Maple. It needs the free and pure air of the forest and of 
the country roadside, and finds its greatest happiness on the low hills 
of northern New England and Michigan, or in the rich protected val- 
leys of the Appalachian Mountains. In such positions no Maple tree 
surpasses it in size and beauty, and few trees equal it in the splendor 
of the coloring of its autumn foliage. The large, cup-shaped bright 
red flowers of one of the forms of the Japanese Acer diabolicum (var. 
pupurascens) have been very beautiful this week, and as a spring-flow- 
ering tree this small Maple well deserves more general cultivation. 
The leaves, too, are large and handsome. There are three plants in 
the Maple Collection, and a number of others in the mixed plantations 
near the top of Peter’s Hill. 
