BULLETIN NO. 29. 
The black-fruited Elder, Sambucus canadensis, which is the last of the 
New England shrubs making a conspicuous show of flowers, now adds 
much beauty to the Arboretum where it is common in the neighborhood 
of the small ponds near the junction of the Meadow and the Forest Hills 
Roads and in the valley of the Bussey Brook. In the Shrub Collection 
are some interesting forms of this beautiful plant. The most conspicu- 
ous perhaps is the variety with finely divided leaflets, var. acutiloba; an- 
other variety, var. chlorocarpa, with yellow-green fruit, was found 
recently in southern New Hampshire. The variety maxima , which orig- 
inated in a European garden, produces flower-clusters at least three 
times as large as those found on the wild plants, and these are followed 
by such large and heavy bunches of fruit that the branches are hardly 
able to support them. The European Sambucus nigra ■ and its variety 
with yellow leaves is also in flower. As a foliage plant one of the most 
beautiful of all the Elders is the Japanese form of the red-fruited Sam- 
bucus racemosa (var. Sieboldii) which is well established in the Shrub 
Collection. The flower and fruit clusters are smaller, however, than 
those of the European and Siberian forms of this plant, and the fruit 
ripens rather later. 
The Chinquapin, Castanea pumila, is in flower about a week before the 
flowers of the northern Chestnut-tree appear. The Chinquapin is a 
native of the coast region of the Atlantic States from New Jersey to 
Florida. It is found also in the Gulf States and in the region west of the 
Mississippi River from southern Missouri to Texas. In the Atlantic 
States it is usually rather a low shrub spreading into thickets, but west 
of the Mississippi, especially in southern Arkansas and Texas, it grows 
into a large, round-headed tree, although it never becomes as large as 
the northern Chestnut-tree. A tree of this western form, and a large 
group of the dwarf form originally from Virginia are established in the 
Arboretum and can be seen with the other Chestnuts on the right-hand 
side of the Valley Road just beyond the Hickory Group. The nuts of the 
Chinquapin are produced freely in the Arboretum every year and, unlike 
those of the northern Chestnut-tree, they are cylindrical, not flattened, 
as only one nut is produced in a burr, and are bright and shining and of 
even better flavor than those of the common Chestnut. The silvery 
under surface of the leaves, which is covered with fine hairs, also distin- 
guishes the Chinquapin from the Chestnut-tree. 
Attention was called in a recent issue of these bulletins to the value of 
the eastern Siberian Hydrangea Bretschneideri as a garden plant. It is 
the first of the genus to flower here. More conspicuous is Hydrangea 
paniculata of Japan and western China. The most generally planted of 
the forms of this plant is one in which all the flowers are sterile, 
known as Hydrangea paniculata grandiflora. This plant produces large 
clusters of white sterile flowers which turn rose color in fading, and it 
will not be in bloom for several weeks. There are two other forms in 
which some of the flowers only are sterile and are called ray flowers be- 
cause they surround the clusters of fertile flowers. These are the wild 
plants from which the form grandiflora, with all the flowers sterile, has 
been developed. There are two forms of this Hydrangea with perfect 
flowers and one of these (var. praecox) will be in flower in a few days 
