BULLETIN NO. 27. 
In Bulletin No. 23 something was said of the Chinese Syringa villosa 
and of the hybrids of this plant with the Hungarian S. Josikaea, repre- 
sented by the variety called Lutece. This variety is just passing out of 
flower and this year has sustained its reputation of being the handsomest 
of the late-flowering Lilacs. It is interesting that among the plants of 
S. villosa recently raised at the Arboretum there is one with nearly pure 
white flowers. 
There is a group of Lilacs which bloom even later than Lutece and its 
parents; they are not true Lilacs, however, and belong to the section 
Ligustrina of the genus which differs from the true Lilacs in the short 
tube of the corolla from which the stamens protrude. There are three 
species of this group, all natives of northeastern Asia; they are shrubs 
or small trees, and they produce white, bad-smelling flowers in large 
clusters. Two of the species are in bloom in the Lilac Group on the left- 
hand side of the Bussey Hill Road. The earliest of these plants, S. am- 
urensis, is not flowering this year; it is a native of eastern Siberia, as 
its name indicates, and is a small tree with flat, spreading or slightly 
drooping clusters of white flowers. The second species to flower, S. pe- 
kinensis, a native of northern China, is a shrub rather thana tree, although 
it sometimes reaches the height of thirty feet, with numerous stout 
stems pendant at the ends and covered with bark peeling off in thin lay- 
ers like that of some of the Birch trees. The long, narrow leaves hang 
gracefully, and the half-drooping flower-clusters, which are flat and un- 
symmetrical, are smaller than those of the other species but are pro- 
duced in great quantities. S. japonica , a native of the forests of Japan, 
is the last of the Tree Lilacs to flower and is a tree often thirty or forty 
feet high, with a tall, stout trunk covered with lustrous bark like that of 
a Cherry tree, and a wide, round-topped head. The leaves are large, 
thick and dark green, and the flowers are produced in large, erect, sym- 
metrical clusters. Like the other species of this group, S. japonica loses 
its leaves early in the autumn without change of color. S. amurensis 
and S. pekinensis have not become common in gardens, but S. japonica 
has been quite generally planted in those of the eastern states. It is one 
of the most valuable plants introduced by the Arboretum where it was 
first raised from seeds sent in 1876 by the late William S. Clark, the first 
President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, and later the first 
President of the Agricultural College at Sapporo in Japan where this 
tree is common. One of the first seedlings raised at the Arboretum can 
be seen in the Apple Group on the right-hand side of the Forest Hills 
Road going toward the Forest Hills Gate, the site of the first Arboretum 
Nursery in which this Lilac was planted. 
It is unfortunate that it is almost impossible to keep the Locust tree 
( Robinia Pseudoacacia) alive in eastern Massachusetts for any length of 
time owing to the borer which riddles the trunk and branches of this 
beautiful and valuable tree. There is now living in the Arboretum only 
one of the ornamental seedling forms of this tree which are so highly 
prized and so often planted in Europe, especially in Germany, but it is 
interesting that this is one of the most abnormal of these forms (var. 
monophylla) in which the compound leaves are reduced to a single leaflet. 
This variety is spreading rapidly on the bank on the right-hand side of 
