haps Vitis Doaniana and V. drier ea ; the first is a native of the Texas 
Panhandle and is a fast-growing plant, apparently perfectly at home 
in New England. The leaves are large and thick, and of a rather pale 
bluish green color. The fruit grows in small clusters and is covered 
with a pale bloom. V. dnerea grows on river banks in the Mississippi 
Valley from Illinois to Kansas and Texas. This plant bears very large 
leaves which are dark green and dull on the upper surface and ashy 
gray on the lower surface, which, like the young shoots, is clothed 
when the leaves unfold with a thick, felt-like, gray covering. Some 
of the other species in the collection which are worth studying from 
the point of view of the planter of handsome vines are V. vulpina , 
the Frost Grape, the species which grows the farthest north; V. rotund- 
ifolia , the Muscadine or southern Fox Grape; V. monticola, the Sweet 
Mountain Grape of the limestone hills of southwestern Texas; V. rubra , 
a graceful plant found from Illinois to Missouri, Louisiana and Texas; 
V. arizonica, with small, pale gray-green leaves; V. aestivalis, the 
Summer Grape of the middle states, with large, dark green leaves 
covered below with rusty brown hairs; V. bicolor, of the northern and 
middle states, a vigorous growing plant with large, deeply-lobed leaves 
dark green on the upper surface and pale blue-green on the lower sur- 
face; V. labrusca, the common Fox Grape of New England, with 
leaves which are covered below with tawny white, tan-colored or red- 
brown felt, and large berries which vary in color from dark purple to 
reddish brown or amber color; and V. cordifolia, the Frost Grape, an 
inhabitant of the middle states, with thin leaves light green on both 
surfaces, and with large clusters of small blue fruits which become 
edible after frost; this is one of the largest and most vigorous of the 
American Grapevines, often growing into the tops of the tallest trees 
and forming stems from one to two feet in diameter. 
Among Old World Grapevines the most valuable as ornamental plants 
here are V. Coignetiae and V. amurensis. The first is an inhabitant 
of northern Japan, and is a large plant with enormous, thick, promi- 
nently veined leaves pale on the lower surface, which in the autumn 
turn bright scarlet. This for northern countries is one of the most 
valuable of all Grapevines. V. amurensis is a native of eastern Sibe- 
ria and, although less vigorous than V. Coignetiae, it is a hardy and 
valuable plant for covering walls and trellises. The Chinese V. Davidii 
is interesting because, unlike other Grapevines, the stems are thickly 
covered with spines. The leaves of this plant turn bright red in the 
autumn. Unfortunately in severe winters the stems are killed back 
to the ground, and it rarely produces fruit in this climate. Equally 
interesting, perhaps, is another Chinese Grapevine, V. Pagnuccii, with 
leaves which are sometimes shaped like those of an ordinary Grape- 
vine and sometimes are deeply and variously lobed much like those on 
the Virginia Creeper. There are in the Arboretum a large number of 
Chinese Grapevines raised from seeds collected by Wilson in western 
China, but it is still too soon to speak of their value here as orna- 
mental plants. 
The earliest Hawthorns (Crataegus) are in flower in the Arboretum 
before the end of April, and the latest of them, the so-called Washing- 
ton Thorn ( C . cordata), is now in flower, so that these plants have a 
blooming period here of at least two months. Their fruits are beautiful 
during even a longer period, for the earliest Hawthorn fruit is ripe in 
August and on some species it remains on the branches and retains its 
shape and color until spring. The Washington Thorn is a native of the 
