GRAY HERBARIUM 
HARVARD UNIVERS1T10 
2 
March 28 the thermometer fell from 78° at noon to 18° during the fol- 
lowing night, and many flowers were injured or destroyed. 
This unusual spring has made it possible to obtain some useful con- 
clusions on the value in this climate of some of the early-flowering trees 
and shrubs. It has again shown that the flowers most easily injured 
by spring frosts are those of the Magnolias, and especially of Magnolia 
stellata, and of the earliest flowering Rhododendrons. This year only 
a few of the Magnolia buds had opened and the plants on the 6th of 
April are well covered with flowers which, although perhaps rather 
smaller than usual, are not discolored. Every flower and flower-bud on 
every plant of Rhododendron dahuricum has been killed, and the first 
flowers of R. mucronii latum are ruined. The flowers of Dirca pnlus- 
tris have been injured and those of Corylopsis Gotoana have been killed. 
Not more than one per cent, of the flowers of the Asiatic Forsythias 
and their hybrids have been injured, and the damage is so small that 
the general appearance of the plants is not affected by it. On the 
European species a larger percentage of buds has been injured. The 
flowers of Cornu s mas, the Cornelian Cherry, v/ere not injured by the 
sudden change of temperature and the trees in the Arboretum have not 
before been more thickly covered with their clusters of bright yellow 
flowers. The fact that severe spring frosts do not injure the flowers 
of this Cornel greatly adds to its value for the decoration of parks and 
gardens in regions with an uncertain spring climate. 
The Cornelian Cherry is a native of southern Europe, and western 
Asia and Siberia, and is a large, shapely shrub ten or tw’elve feet high 
and broad, or if pruned w’hen young to a single stem a tree v/ith a short 
trunk and wide-spreading branches. The flowers are pale yellow, and 
are borne in compact clusters in the axils of the unfolding leaves, and 
although individually small are produced in such profusion that they 
cover the branches. The leaves, which are large and dark green, are 
handsome but fall in the autumn, like those of many other European 
trees and shrubs, without change of color. The fruit is of the shape 
and size of a small olive, and is bright scarlet and lustrous. Plants 
said to be of a yellow-fruited form have been planted several times in 
the Arboretum but the fruit has always been scarlet. The flesh of 
the fruit is sweet, of a rather agreeable flavor, and in Europe is some- 
times made into a preserve. For regions too cold for the successful 
cultivation of the Forsythias the Cornelian Cherry is the handsomest 
of early flowering shrubs with yellow flowers. In its native countries 
it often grows in calcareous soil and should, therefore, prove valu- 
able in the middle western states. A hundred years ago when the num- 
ber of handsome plants available for American gardens was not as large 
as it is today the Cornelian Cherry was more often planted here than 
it is now, and it is doubtful if it can now be found in many American 
nurseries. Few exotic shrubs, nevertheless, are better worth the atten- 
tion of northern nurserymen. 
Forsythias. In spite of the loss of a few of their expanding flower- 
buds the Asiatic Forsythias have not often been in better bloom in the 
Arboretum, for the cold of severe winters like those of 1915 and 1916 
too often kills the flower-buds. None of the newly discovered Asiatic 
