11 
duced large crops of fruit until the trees were attacked by the Pear 
blight which has ruined many of these orchards. P. ovoidea has been 
growing in the Arboretum for eighteen years and P. Bretschneideri 
for thirty-four years and have never been attacked by the Pear blight. 
It is suggested that by crossing these species with some of the gar- 
den Pears valuable results in the way of a new and very hardy race 
of Pear-trees may be secured. Among hybrid plants in this group 
attention is called to 
A 
Pyrus malifolia. This is a natural hybrid between the common Pear 
and the White Beam-tree of Europe, Sorbus Aria, and is very similar 
and perhaps a seedling of the hybrid Boilwyller Pear which appeared 
in Alsace more than three hundred years ago as it was first mentioned 
by the botanist Bauhin in 1619. P. malifolia has large pale oval leaves 
and large flowers in few-flowered clusters. It is perfectly hardy and 
a remarkably fast-growing tree which promises to attain a large size 
in this climate. It well deserves a place in New England collections 
of flowering trees. 
The Asiatic Crabapples are beginning to flower and as the American 
species do not bloom until later it will be possible to enjoy in the 
Arboretum the beautiful flowers of these trees for several weeks. The 
collection is a large one and now contains plants large or small of all 
the American and Old World species with the single exception of the 
little known Malus formosana, a native, as its name implies, of the 
island of Formosa. The collections made by Mr. Wilson in China and 
Japan have thrown much light on several of the Asiatic species which 
are now much better known than they were a few years ago. The 
discovery that a common Apple-tree of western China, largely culti- 
vated as a fruit tree in the mountainous districts of Hupeh and 
Szechuan, is a form of Malus prunifolia which, although it has been 
in European gardens for nearly a century, was not known before as 
a wildtree, is interesting. This form is now called 
Malus prunifolia, var. rinki. It is a tree in its wild state with green- 
ish yellow fruit sometimes with a reddish cheek, or rarely entirely 
red, rather longer than broad and not often more than an inch and a 
quarter in diameter; it is juicy and has an acid flavor. This tree was 
early introduced into Japan where it was formerly cultivated in many 
forms as a fruit tree. The good quality of the fruit of some of these 
is mentioned in his recently published reminiscences by Lord Redes- 
dale who, in the early 60’s as a member of an English Embassy, found 
them in a remote part of Japan. The cultivation of the Rinki was 
given up in Japan after the introduction of American and English 
Apple-trees and it is now a rare plant there. It is this Apple which 
is often called Pyrus or Malus Ringo in European publications. Judg- 
ing by the climate where this tree grows naturally in western China, 
it should prove as hardy as the Siberian Malus haccata which is one 
of the parents of the hardy race of Apples now much cultivated in the 
