23 
Midseason Lilacs are in bloom nearly three weeks earlier than usual. 
The best known of them, Syringa villosa, was raised at the Arboretum 
nearly thirty-five years ago and from the Arboretum has been carried 
into many American gardens. It is a large, round-topped shrub with 
large leaves and compact broad or narrow clusters of pale rose-colored 
or nearly white flowers which unfortunately have the disagreeable odor 
of Privet flowers. In spite of the disagreeable odor of the flowers 
this Lilac is a first-rate garden plant, and particularly valuable because 
it does not begin to bloom until most of the flowers of the different 
varieties of the common Lilac have faded. The Hungarian Lilac, S, 
Josikaea, a tall shrub with violet-colored flowers in narrow clusters, 
blooms a few days later than S. villosa. It is one of the least attrac- 
tive of all Lilacs but crossed with S. villosa it has produced in France 
a race of hybrids of great beauty to which the general name of iS. 
Henryi has been given. One of the handsomest of these hybrids, 
Lutece, is now covered with its large open clusters of red-violet flowers. 
This is one of the handsomest Lilacs of recent creation and deserves 
the attention of the lovers of these plants. Another of this race of 
hybrids, S. eximia, blooms a few days later and has more compact 
clusters of rose-colored or reddish flowers which after opening becom.e 
light pink. Another of these midseason Lilacs, S. Wolfii, is also in 
bloom. This is a little known species from northern China, and has 
leaves like those of S. villosa, but the flov/ers are smaller and violet- 
purple, and the flower-clusters are much larger. This promises to be 
a valuable shrub in northern gardens. It blooms a few days earlier 
than S. Koehneana, a native of Korea, a large shrub with slender 
drooping branches and broad, unsymmetrical clusters of slender rose- 
colored or pink flowers which have little perfume. Although this plant 
has been growing in the Arboretum for sixteen years, it did not begin 
to flower freely until two years ago. 
Crataegus pinnatifida. In the thirty-five years this plant has been 
an inhabitant of the Arboretum it has never been more covered with 
flowers than during the past week. It is a native of eastern Siberia 
and northern China and is an arborescent shrub or small tree. The 
leaves are large, deeply lobed, thick, and lustrous on the upper sur- 
face; the flowers are large, in many-flowered compact clusters, and are 
followed by dull red, oblong fruit about three-quarters of an inch in 
length. The fruit is less valuable for jelly than that of some of the 
American Crabapples of the Mollis Group. It is esteemed by the Chin- 
ese, however, who plant and carefully cultivate orchards of this Haw- 
thorn in the neighborhood of Peking. If a selection of the six hand- 
somest Hawthorns of the world was to be made many persons would 
include in the six this Chinese species. 
Cornus controversa. It is fortunate that the winter has had no bad 
effect on this tree which promises to be one of the important intro- 
ductions from eastern Asia. Like our Cornus alternifolia, it has wide- 
spreading branches and alternate leaves, but the flower-clusters are 
larger. It is a larger tree, sometimes growing in western China to 
the height of sixty feet. It is now in bloom in the supplementary 
