Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. IV 
NO. 7 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. JUNE 5. 1918 
The New Chinese Lilacs. Many of the liilacs discovered by Wilson 
and other travellers in the recent explorations of western and northern 
China are now so well established in the Arboretum and in a few other 
American gardens that it is possible to form an opinion of their value. 
Observations of the living plants show that too many species were 
made when botanists had only the dried specimens sent home from 
China to work with. Now that most of these plants have flowered 
in the Arboretum and have been again studied it appears that Syringa 
Wilsonii and S. Dielsiana are the same as S. tomentella; that S. Sar- 
gentiana is a variety of S. Komarowii with a pubescent calyx; that 
S. tetanoloha is S. Swegenzowii, and that S. Rehderiana is probably 
only a pubescent form of S. tow-enfella. S. Komarowii Sargentiana is 
not in the Arboretum collection and probably has not been introduced. 
S. Rehderiana, S. Potaninii and S. verrucosa are still unknown in gar- 
dens. As a garden plant the handsomest of the new Chinese Lilacs is 
Springa rejiexa which Wilson discovered in western Hupeh. This is a 
tall broad shrub with leaves resembling in size and shape those of S. 
villosa. The flowers have long slender corolla-tubes and are borne in 
long, wide-branched, open, drooping clusters; the flower-buds are red 
but as the flowers open the corolla becomes dark rose color except the 
inner surface of the lobes which is white. The wide drooping clusters, 
and the contrast in the colors of the inner surface of the corolla-lobes 
and its tube, make S. rejiexa one of the handsomest and most in- 
teresting of the new Chinese Lilacs. Next in merit probably as an 
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