Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. II NO. 6 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA Pl^IN, MASS. JUNE 2. 1916 
Chinese Cotoneasters. Cotoneasters are shrubs or rarely small trees 
of the Rose Family, related to the Apples, Pears and Hawthorns. 
The genus has long been known in Europe and eastern Siberia, but it 
is only in recent years that it has been discovered that the largest 
number of species of these plants grows in China. The first Chinese 
species was known to botanists as early as 1832; forty-five years 
passed before another of these Chinese plants was recognized, and it 
was not until Henry and Wilson began the systematic exploration of 
the flora of central and western China that any one suspected its 
richness in these plants. Now forty-eight or fifty Chinese species and 
well marked varieties are recognized. Of those with deciduous leaves 
twenty-four are now well established in the Arboretum. Among them 
are some of the handsomest shrubs in cultivation, and for this climate 
at least some of the species are perhaps the most valuable shrubs in- 
troduced by Wilson. For the embellishment of northern gardens the 
introduction and successful cultivation of the Chinese Cotoneasters 
rank in importance with the improvements made in Europe in recent 
years in the garden Lilacs, with the forms of hybrid Philadelphus made 
by Lemoine, and with the collection of American Hawthorns discovered 
and raised in the last sixteen years through the activities of the Ar- 
boretum. Some of the Chinese Cotoneasters are low shrubs only a few 
inches high and admirably suited for the decoration of rock gardens; 
others are large broad bushes eight or ten feet high; and it is not 
possible to say which of these plants is the best for some of them are 
better suited for one purpose and some for another. On some species 
the leaves are small, thick, dark green and very lustrous; on others 
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