The so-called Japanese Quince ( Pyrus or Chaenomeles japonica) with 
its bright red flowers appearing before or with the leaves is found in 
most old-fashioned gardens. In recent years some attention has been 
paid in Europe to the improvement of this plant, and there are in cul- 
tivation forms with flowers of various shades of red and pink, and with 
white and red and white flowers. There are a large number of these 
forms in the Shrub Collection but the flower-buds, except those on the 
lower branches, have been much injured by the winter, and thi3 year it is 
not possible to get an idea of the beauty of some of these plants. 
The flower-buds of another of the eastern Asiatic Quinces ( Chaeno- 
meles Maulei) have not suffered, however, and the plants, which are also 
in the Shrub Collection, are now in great beauty; they are low, rather 
wide-spreading, little shrubs and the flowers on different individuals 
vary from crimson to nearly white. Well suited for planting in the 
rock-garden, on the margins of shrubberies and on low banks, they 
appear to be still little known in this country. The Asiatic Quinces, 
like many related genera in the Rose Family, suffer seriously from the 
San Jose scale which, although it can easily be kept in check by spray- 
ing, makes them sometimes undesirable garden plants. 
The yellow-flowered western American Currants, Ribes odoratum 
and R. aureum, are just now two of the most conspicuous plants in 
the Arboretum. A generation ago the former was one of the common 
shrubs in American gardens where it was always called the Missouri 
Currant; it is even sometimes naturalized in the eastern United States. 
A native of the region from Dakota to Texas, it is perfectly hardy, 
grows to a large size and flowers freely every year. The other yellow- 
flowered Currant is a smaller plant with more slender stems and shorter 
flowers, and is perhaps a more attractive plant than the former. It 
grows naturally from the headwaters of the Missouri River to the 
northwest coast and to Arizona, and is^still rare in cultivation. There is 
a variety in the collection from Montana with yellow fruit (var. chryso- 
coccum). Among other species of Currants which are also in flower one 
of the most interesting is the Rocky Mountain Ribes cereum with its 
handsome foliage and small white flowers. There is a good specimen of 
this little known plant in the Shrub Collection, where Ribes tenue from 
western China is flowering for the first time in the Arboretum. 
In the Gooseberry Collection are now in flower several handsome and 
interesting species well worth examination by persons interested in 
shrubs still little known in gardens. Some of the most distinct species 
now in flower in this group are Ribes niveum , with white flowers, from 
the northwestern United States, R. missouriense , with pale yellow 
flowers, an inhabitant of the region from Missouri to Arkansas, R. 
stenocarpum, with white flowers, from Japan, R. Cynosbati, and its 
variety inerme , with white flowers, from the northeastern United 
States, and R. pinetorum , with orange-red flowers, from Arizona; in 
flower this last is perhaps the most beautiful of all the Gooseberries 
in the Arboretum. 
The Korean Viburnum Carlesii is uninjured by the winter. This is 
one of the most beautiful of the exotic Viburnums and is particularly 
interesting from the fact that the flower-buds are bright orange-red 
while the inner surface of the corolla is white, and as the flowers open 
the color of the outer surface gradually fades to pink and then to white. 
