Cercidiphyllum japonicum , another Japanese tree, is just coming 
into flower. Unlike Euptelea, the male and female flowers are borne 
on different individuals and, like those of that genus, the flowers are 
without sepals and petals. The anthers of the staminate trees are 
red and rather showy, but the female flowers are inconspicuous. The 
beauty of the tree is in its foliage. The leaves are rounded and, al- 
though smaller, are in shape a good deal like those of the Redbud or 
Cercis. For this reason the name Cercidiphyllum has been given to the 
tree. When the leaves unfold they are bronze red, during the summer 
they are light green and turn in the autumn to clear yellow. This is 
the largest deciduous-leaved tree of Japan where it grows in the north- 
ern part of the empire scattered through forests of Oaks and other 
northern trees. Cercidiphyllum is a tree of pyramidal habit with a 
number of stems springing from the ground, and in Japan it often 
grows to the height of more than one hundred feet. It was introduced 
into the United States through the Arboretum many years ago and has 
now become common in collections here. There is a group of these 
trees on the two sides of the Meadow Road a short distance beyond 
the Administration Building entering from the Jamaica Plain gate. In 
western China Wilson found a Cercidiphyllum growing on open hill- 
sides with a tall straight trunk, and therefore quite unlike the Japan- 
ese tree in habit. This form, which has been named var. chinensis, is 
growing well in the Arboretum, the young plants showing the single 
stem habit. 
The first flowers of the earliest flowering Cherry in the Arboretum, 
Prunus tomentosa, are already open. This is a native of northern 
China and in cultivation is a broad, vigorous and perfectly hardy shrub 
of excellent habit which covers itself every year with large white flow- 
ers more or less tinged with red toward the base of the petals. The 
flowers are followed in early summer by bright red slightly hairy fruits 
of good flavor. Introduced by the Arboretum from Peking nearly 
thirty years ago, this has proved one of the most valuable of spring- 
flowering shrubs. There is a group of small plants of this Cherry on 
the right-hand side of the road just below the Forest Hills gate, and 
very large plants can be seen along the Boston Parkway between Per- 
kins Street in Jamaica Plain and Forest Hills. 
In the Cherry Group, on the Forest Hills Road, the Japanese and 
Chinese Prunus subhirtella and the Japanese Prunus pendula will be 
in full bloom early next week. The flowers of the former are among 
the most beautiful of the Asiatic Cherries, and the trees have never 
been more thickly covered with flower-buds. 
The flowers of some of the Forsythias have appeared rather earlier 
than usual this year, especially those of the var. Fortunei of F. sus- 
pensa which is the form most generally cultivated in the neighborhood 
of Boston. This genus has given to our northern gardens some of the 
most beautiful and most satisfactory of all hardy shrubs. The species 
are all Chinese with the exception of F. europaea which was discovered 
in Albania a few years ago and is of much less value as a garden plant 
than the Chinese species. F. viridissima, the first species cultivated in 
Europe and America and the latest of all species to flower, is of com- 
paratively little ornamental value. It is, however, one of the parents 
