BULLETIN NO. 23. 
Many of the Lilacs are now in flower and persons interested in these 
plants should visit the Arboretum during the next few days, although 
the flowers of several of the species will continue to open until the end 
of June. 
The plant with which the popular idea of Lilac is associated, and which 
for New England and other regions with cold winters and hot summers, 
is one of the most beautiful and successful of all shrubs is Syringa vul- 
garis. It is a plant for the north, for in southern New England and 
southward the leaves in summer are often temporarily disfigured by a 
white mildew. This plant was sent from Constantinople to Vienna about 
1560 and soon reached western Europe, as the purple and white varieties 
were cultivated by Gerard in England in 1597. The Lilac was long be- 
lieved to be a native of Persia, and it is only in comparatively recent 
years that its home has been found to be among the mountains of Bul- 
garia. A few years ago the Arboretum succeeded in obtaining seeds 
from wild Bulgarian plants and the seedlings raised from these seeds will 
bloom here this year for the first time. For more than two centuries 
only the purple and white varieties were cultivated; then a few selected 
seedlings appeared in gardens, and in the last thirty or forty years a 
great deal of attention has been paid in France and Germany to improv- 
ing the Lilac. In the Arboretum collection there are now one hundred 
and twenty of these named varieties and there are others for which room 
cannot be found. Further improvement in these plants by selection can 
hardly be expected; indeed some of the oldest varieties are still the best, 
and many of the seedlings of recent years are so much alike that many 
of them are not worth cultivating. Indeed, in a dozen selected varieties 
nearly all the good qualities and the greatest beauty of modern garden 
Lilacs can be found. If there is not much now to be expected from 
new seedlings of Syringa vulgaris, the making of hybrids between the 
species promises interesting and valuable garden plants if we can judge 
by the excellence of a few hybrid Lilacs, which have already been raised. 
The first of these hybrids, the Rouen Lilac, was raised in 1795 in France 
and is the result of crossing Syringa vulgaris with the small, late-flow- 
ered Syringa persica. The oldest name for this plant is unfortunately 
Syringa chinensis, given to it through a misunderstanding of its origin; 
it is also known as S. rothomagensis. It is very vigorous and is interme- 
diate in character between its parents. The flowers are reddish purple, 
fragrant, and produced in long comparatively narrow clusters which 
weigh down the slender branches; there is a variety with nearly white 
flowers. This hybrid is among the best of all garden Lilacs. 
A hybrid between 5. vulgaris and S. oblata with small, semi-double, 
very fragrant, purple flowers, known as S. hyacinthifiora, is one of the 
earliest of all Lilacs to flower and is a vigorous, large-growing and very 
hardy plant. & oblata, one of the parents of this hybrid, is a native of 
northern China and has been in flower for several days. The large pale 
lilac flowers are very fragrant and are produced in more or less irregular 
