46 
eighty or ninety feet high with tall massive trunks can be seen in 
those countries. The best known of the Chinese species, Pterocarya 
stenoptera, is a common tree in the central and southern provinces of 
China, ranging southward into Tonking. It inhabits plains and low 
hills in the neighborhood of streams and is said to be always a small 
tree. This tree was first planted in Europe in 1860 in the Arboretum 
Segrezianum; it lived there for several years but was killed by the 
severe winter of 1879-80. In the Arboretum the roots live but the 
stems are killed back to the ground or nearly to the ground every win- 
ter. This tree would probably grow well in California or in some of 
the southern states, but its only interest in the north is in the fact 
that crossed with the Caucasian species it has produced a natural hybrid 
to which the name Pterocarya Rehderiana has been given. This is a 
beautiful, fast-growing tree with characters intermediate between those 
of its parents, which it surpasses in hardiness and vigor. The small 
grove of these trees under which at one place Hickory Path passes is 
one of the interesting groups in the Arboretum. These trees flower 
and produce fruit every year and send up also many suckers from the 
roots by which they can be easily multiplied. The two or three other 
Chinese species of Pterocarya have not yet been cultivated long enough 
to make it possible to form any opinion of their value in this climate. 
Judging by our present knowledge, it is to Japan that we must look 
for the best Pterocarya for general planting. The Japanese species 
P. rhoifolia has been growing in the Arboretum since 1893 when it 
was raised here from seed collected by Professor Sargent in Japan. 
He first met with it on the lower margin of the Hemlock-forest {Tsuga 
diversifolia) which covers the slopes about Lake Umoto among the Nikko 
Mountains. Here the Pterocarya was a small tree; on the slopes of 
Mount Hakkoda in the extreme northern part of Hondo he found the 
Pterocarya extremely common at altitudes between 2500 and 4000 feet 
above the sea level and next to the Beech the largest tree of the 
region. Trees eighty feet high with a tall straight trunk two and a 
half feet in diameter and stout branches spreading at nearly right 
angles and forming a massive crown of dark green foliage were com- 
mon. The leaves are eight or ten inches long and from four to six 
inches wide, with stout hairy petioles and six or seven pairs of lateral 
leaflets which are acute, unequally rounded at base, long-pointed, and 
finely toothed on the margins; in October they turn clear yellow before 
falling. The terminal winter-buds well distinguish this species; they 
are conical with a curved beak and when first formed are covered with 
a thin sheath composed of two external and usually two internal glab- 
rous glandular scales; these fall off late in the autumn, leaving scars 
at the base of the bud which is thickly covered with pale pubescence. 
In the Arboretum Pterocarya rhoifolia has proved to be one of the 
handsomest and hardiest of the trees of eastern Asia which have been 
planted here; it has grown up with a clear straight trunk and its lus- 
trous dark green leaves have not yet been injured by insects or dis- 
ease. It will certainly be a good subject for park plantations; and it 
is not improbable that it will prove useful for shading city streets. It 
should certainly be tried for this purpose. Pterocarya rhoifolia is a 
rare tree in the United States and Europe. During the last two years, 
