COMPLIMENTARY 
NEW SERIES VOL. Ill 
NO. II 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAM.MCA PLAIN, MASS. JUNE 29, 1917 
Late Lilacs. A group of Lilacs which bloom later than any of the 
forms of the common garden Lilac {Syringa vulgaris) and earlier than 
the so-called Tree Lilacs makes the period of Lilac flowers here con- 
tinuous for nearly two months. These late-flowering Lilacs have been 
in bloom for several days. The first of them known in gardens was a 
Hungarian species, Syringa Josikaea. This is a tall narrow shrub with 
erect stems, broadly elliptic, dark green, lustrous leaves and narrow 
open clusters six or seven inches long of small violet-colored, long- 
tubed flowers. Interesting from the point of botanical geography, as 
its home is further west than that of any other Lilac, it is the least 
attractive as a flowering plant of all Lilacs with the exception, per- 
haps, of the Chinese Syringa pinnatifolia. Five years later in 1840 
the second of these late-flowering Lilacs, S. Emodii, was cultivated in 
English gardens. It is a large broad shrub with large leaves pale on 
the lower surfa'ce and broad clusters of light lilac or nearly white 
flowers, and is a native of the Himalayas. This shrub is hardy in the 
Arboretum in a sheltered position, and occasionally flowers here. In 
this climate, however, it has little to recommend it as an ornamental 
plant. 
The most valuable in this group has proved to be Syringa villosa, a 
native of northern China, and sometimes called S. Bretschneideri and 
S. Emodi, var. villosa. This plant was first raised in the United States 
at the Arboretum in 1882 from seeds which had been sent from St. 
Petersburg by Dr. Bretschneider, and is now often seen in our north- 
ern gardens. As it grows in this country it is a round-topped, hand- 
some bush ten or twelve feet high and wide, with large, broadly ellip- 
tic to oblong leaves bright green and dull on the upper surface, and 
compact, broad or rarely narrow clusters of flesh-colored or nearly 
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