19 
A Hybrid Shad Bush. In 1892 the Arboretum received from Heinrich 
Zabel, Superintendent of the Botanic Garden at Zurich, seeds of an Amel- 
anchier which he had obtained from the Simon Louis Nursery near 
Metz, and called Amelanchier canadensis grandijiora. He considered, 
perhaps correctly, that his plant was a hybrid between A. canadensis 
and A. laevis. The leaves are certainly intermediate between those of 
these species; the flowers, however, are only just now open, nearly 
three weeks later than those of A. canadensis and ten days after the 
petals of A. laevis have fallen. The flowers, too, of this plant are 
larger than those of either of its supposed parents, and larger and 
more beautiful than those of any Amelanchier which has ever grown 
in the Arboretum. The Arboretum plants are large shrubs rather than 
trees, but they look as if they would have formed a single trunk if 
they had been pruned. Whatever may have been the origin of this 
plant, or whatever habit it may assume, it is, when in flower, the most 
beautiful of all the Amelanchiers, and this week one of the conspicu- 
ous plants in the Arboretum. Several other handsome and interesting 
Amelanchiers are also in bloom in the collection on the left-hand side 
of the Meadow Road. Among them is the species of China and Japan, 
A. asiatica, and A. vulgaris of Europe, the only Amelanchiers which 
grow naturally outside of North America. The curious northern A. Bar- 
tramiana with small flowers in one or few-flowered clusters, and four or 
five other species from the northeastern part of the country, are still 
in flower or are beginning to shed their petals. The Amelanchier col- 
lection, however, is by no means complete for several of the western 
species have not yet proved amenable to cultivation in the east. 
The Buckeye Collection on the right hand side of the Meadow Road 
beyond the Lindens is in good condition, and the southern species re- 
cently introduced by the Arboretum into gardens will all flower well 
this year. Buckeye, it must be remembered, is the name by which 
American Horsechestnuts {Aesculus) are popularly known in the regions 
where these plants grow naturally. From the Horsechestnuts of the 
Old World they differ, except the California species, in the absence of 
a gummy exudation on their winter-buds. As in previous years the 
earliest of these American plants to bloom is the form with leaves of 
seven leaflets of the so-called Ohio Buckeye from western Missouri {Aes- 
culus glabra var. Buckleyi). The flowers of another yellow-flowered 
species, Aesculus arguta, a small shrub from central Oklahoma and 
northern and central Texas, will soon follow. This interesting little 
plant is related to the Ohio Buckeye, from which it differs chiefly in 
the nine narrow leaflets of the leaves and in its small flowers. Beautiful 
interesting flowers will open on Buckeyes and Horsechestnuts during 
and several weeks. 
Rhododendron (Azalea) Vaseyi. This species of the southern Appa- 
lachian Mountains, which after the Rhodora is the first of the Ameri- 
can Azaleas to open its flowers in the Arboretum, is in bloom. The 
pure pink flowers appear on the leafless branches, and in delicacy and 
purity of color are not surpassed by the flowers of any other plant. It 
is only within comparatively recent years that this Azalea has been 
