COMPLIMENTARY 
NEW SERIES VOL. II NO. 4 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN. MASS. MAY 19, 1916 
The Ohio Buckeye. This, the Aesculus glabra of botanists, is the 
first of the Horsechestnut family to open its flowers. It is a small 
tree rarely more than fifty feet tall and usually much smaller, with 
bark which on young trees is dark brown and scaly but on old trunks 
becomes ashy gray and deeply furrowed. It has pale yellow flowers, 
with petals shorter than the stamens and fruit covered with prickles 
like that of the European Horsechestnut; unlike those of that tree, 
the winter-buds are not resinous. It is one of the most widely distrib- 
uted of the American Buckeyes as it ranges from western Pennsylva- 
nia to northern Alabama and to eastern Nebraska and Oklahoma. 
There is a variety in southern Arkansas with smooth pale bark which 
has been distinguished as var. leucodermis, and there is another vari- 
ety in western Missouri with leaves composed of seven instead of five 
leaflets v/hich is known as var. Buckleyi. The Ohio Buckeye and these 
two varieties have been in flower for several days in the Arboretum 
collection. Their flowers are much less showy than those of other 
Horsechestnuts and of most of their hybrids, but the Ohio Buckeye is 
interesting botanically as well as historically, for it is to this tree that 
one of the great and important states of the Union owes its popular 
name. , 
Rhododendron Kaempferi. This red-flowered Azalea from the moun- 
tains of central Japan promises to bloom well this spring for many of 
the plants are covered with flower-buds which are already showing 
color. There are masses of this hardy Azalea on both sides of Azalea 
Path and at- the northern base of Hemlock Hill between the Hemlocks 
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