52 
branches sometimes are severely injured by the cold of severe winters. 
Housewives of earlier generations carefully gathered the flowers to place 
among their linen which was pleasantly perfumed in this way; and the 
plants which produced these flowers were cherished for this purpose. 
From the other species C. fioridus is distinguished by the thick coat of 
pale down on the lower surface of the leaves. The flowers differ some- 
what in color: on a plant once cultivated by the Berckmans in their nur- 
sery at Augusta, Georgia, the flowers were yellow, and in the Arbore- 
tum collection are plants which have sometimes been referred to the 
rather obscure C. Mohrii on which the flowers are paler brown than those 
of the common form. These Arboretum plants were raised from seeds 
collected in the neighborhood of Stone Mountain, Georgia. C. Mohrii 
is said to grow in southern Tennessee and northern Alabama, and is a 
plant which needs investigation. The other Calycanthus now in the 
collection, C. fertilis, is distinguished by the absence of down on the 
lower surface of the leaves and by less fragrant or nearly scentless flow- 
ers. C. fertilis is a variable plant: on what is considered the type the 
lower surface of the leaves is pale and glaucous; on another form (var. 
ferax or laevigatus) the leaves are green on the lower surface; another 
form (var. minus) only differs from the last in its smaller size - and 
smaller flowers and fruits. This dwarf form is the most northern of 
these plant? -as it has been found on the mountains of Pennsylvania; and 
on the Blue Ridge of North Carolina it is common up to altitudes of from 
three thousand to three thousand five hundred feet. The other species 
and varieties are plants of lower altitudes, and the most northern sta- 
tion for C. fioridus known to the Arboretum is on the cliffs of the 
Coosa River near Rome in northwestern Georgia. The other genus of 
this Family, Chimonanthus, from southern China, is found in most trop- 
ical and semi-tropical gardens where it is valued for its very fragrant 
early flowers. 
American Hydrangeas. Of the four Hydrangeas of eastern North 
America the handsomest is H. quercifolia, with branches densely 
covered with rusty tomentum, deeply lobed leaves up to eight inches 
in length, and flowers in elongated pyramidal clusters. This shrub is 
a native of the extreme southern states and the stems are often killed 
nearly to the ground here in severe winters; this summer the plant in 
the Shrub Collection is in better condition than usual and is now car- 
rying one cluster of flowers. H. arborescens and H. cinerea with flat 
flower-clusters are common woodland shrubs southward, and are of no 
great value as garden plants. There are monstrous forms of the two 
plants on which all the flowers are sterile, forming nearly globose white 
heads. This form of H. arborescens (var. grandifior'a) has become in 
recent years a popular plant with American nurserymen, by whom it is 
sold in great numbers. The handsomest of the entirely hardy American 
species, H. radiata, is a native of the elevated regions of North and 
South Carolina. It is distinguished by its broad leaves which are dark 
green above and snow white below, and by its broad flat clusters of 
flowers surrounded by a ring of large, white, sterile flowers. In culti- 
vation this Hydrangea is a broad and shapely shrub and one of the hand- 
somest of midsummer flowering plants in the Arboretum. Once it was 
fairly common in cultivation, but from what nurserymen can it now be 
obtained and how many gardeners of the present day have ever seen it? 
