Outside the Boston parks, where a few of the strong-growing Bush 
Honeysuckles have been planted, they are rarely seen in American collec- 
tions in spite of their great beauty and value. They need good soil and 
plenty of space in which to develop naturally or much of their beauty is 
lost. The habit these plants assume as they attain their full size can be 
seen on the right-hand side of the Bussey Hill Road and along the Arbor- 
way between Jamaica Pond and the entrance to the Arboretum. 
Some of the small-growing Bush Honeysuckles from central and western 
China now in flower in the Shrub Collection deserve careful examination. 
Some of the most interesting species are L. syringantha and L. syrin- 
gantha, var. Wolfii, with purple flowers, from western China, L. tibetica 
and L. tangutica from the same region, and L. coerulea gracilipes, with 
pale yellow drooping flowers, from Turkestan. 
To many people the word Horsechestnut stands only for the great tree 
from the mountains of Greece with large clusters of white flowers 
blotched with red which has been planted for at least a hundred years in 
the United States where it is one of the most satisfactory of all exotic 
trees. But there are many other Horsechestnuts, both trees and shrubs, 
as may be seen by the examination of a group of these plants on the 
right-hand side of the Meadow Road and just beyond the Linden Group. 
Some of the hybrids are of much interest and of these the best known 
now is the so-called red-flowered Horsechestnut, Aesculus earned, a hy- 
brid probably between the Grecian tree ( Ae . Hippocastanum) and the 
red-flowered Aesculus Pavia from the southeastern United States, 
although the history of the origin of this tree is unknown. A form or 
variety of this hybrid, known as Ae. carnea Briotii, appeared about forty 
years ago in a French nursery and is a tree with handsomer and much 
darker-colored flowers than the ordinary red-flowered Horsechestnut. 
The beauty of these flowers can be seen on two small plants now flower- 
ing in the collection. Ae. glabra, the Ohio Buckeye, and some of its 
varieties, Ae. octandra and hybrids between the last and Ae. Pavia, 
known under the general name of Ae. versicolor, are also in flower. 
These hybrids and varieties of the American Horsechestnut were popular 
garden plants in France in the first half of the last century but they have 
now largely disappeared from cultivation and are difficult to obtain. One 
of the oldest and largest collections to be found now anywhere is in the 
Mt. Hope nurseries at Rochester, N. Y. 
The large and abundant flowers of Magnolia Fraseri, mentioned in the 
last number of these bulletins, are now fully open. Two other American 
Magnolias in the same group are also in flower, M. acuminata and M. 
cordata. M. acuminata, the Cucumber- tree, is a large tree with small, 
yellow-green, not very conspicuous flowers. This is the most northern 
in its range of the American Magnolias and is a hardy, fast-growing tree 
of rather formal pyramidal habit while young; it is a distinct and desirable 
tree for northern plantations in which in good soil it can grow to a large 
size. M. cordata is a smaller, round-headed tree with thicker and dark- 
er-colored leaves and small, bright canary yellow flowers. This beauti- 
ful tree is supposed to have been carried to France from the mountain 
forests of northern Georgia or of the Carolinas at the beginning of the 
last century. It has not been rediscovered, however, or a tree exactly 
like it has not been rediscovered in the south, and it is now only known 
as a cultivated tree. The plants in the Arboretum were obtained by 
