8 
known perhaps as P. triflora, flowers only a little later than the Can- 
ada Plum, and the flower-buds which completely cover the wide-spread- 
ing branches are already opening. This tree is interesting because it is 
the only native Plum in eastern Asia and the tree from which the so- 
called Japanese Plums of gardens have been evolved. 
Corylus chinensis. The fact that this tree has again escaped injury 
by a severe winter and is flowering in the Arboretum for the second 
time will interest the large number of persons in this country who are 
now associated together for the study and improvement of nut-bearing 
trees. Corylus chinensis is a splendid tree widely distributed but no- 
where abundant on the mountains of Hupeh and Szech’uan. It is a 
tree with spreading branches usually from fifty to seventy feet tall, 
with a trunk two or three feet in diameter, although Wilson measured 
one tree growing near Fang Hsien in Hupeh which was 120 feet high 
with a trunk nearly seven feet in diameter. No other Hazel of this 
size has been reported before or since. The Arboretum plants ripened 
a few nuts in the autumn of 1919; the nuts vary in size but are 
thick-shelled, and are enclosed in an involucre which also varies in 
shape and thickness. Compared with cultivated Hazel-nuts they have 
no comestible value. Corylus chinensis, however, may prove valuable as 
a parent of a race of large-growing Hazels with good fruit, or as a vigor- 
ous stock on which to graft some of the forms of C. Avellana with im- 
proved fruit. But whether it proves valuable or not in improving Hazel- 
nuts Corylus chinensis, if it grows here as it does on its native moun- 
tains, should prove an interesting and valuable addition to the exotic 
trees which can be cultivated in this country. 
The Nutmeg Hickory. It is a matter of congratulation that this 
Hickory-tree {Carya myristicaeformis) has been growing for several years 
in the Arboretum and has not been injured by the severe winters of 
recent years. This is one of the rare and handsome trees of south- 
eastern North America, and one of the most interesting of Hickory-trees 
because it unites two distinct groups of species of these trees - the group 
with valvate bud-scales and thin-shelled nuts in thin husks, of which the 
Bitternut and the Pecan are representatives, and the group with imbri- 
cated bud-scales and thick-shelled nuts in more or less thickened husks, 
of which the Shagbark Hickory and the Pignut are representatives. 
The Nutmeg Hickory is a magnificent tree often a hundred feet high, 
with a tall stem and leaves silvery white on the lower side of the leaf- 
lets. The nuts somewhat resemble in shape those of the Pecan but are 
marked by longitudinal bands of small gray spots. The Nutmeg Hick- 
ory grows only in a few isolated stations from eastern South Carolina 
to eastern Texas. It is most abundant in southern Arkansas where the 
seeds were gathered from which the Arboretum plants have been raised. 
