Complimentary 
NEW SERIES VOL. I 
NO. 3 
ARNOLD ARBORETUM 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
AKL'iflSi 
BULLETIN 
OF 
POPULAR INFORMATION 
JAMAICA PLAIN, MASS. MAY 13, 1915 
Asiatic Crabapples. During the next few days the Crabapples from 
eastern Asia will be the most conspicuous flowering plants in the Arbor- 
etum. The old collection is on the left-hand side of the Forest Hills 
Road. There is a larger collection containing a larger number of vari- 
eties at the eastern base of Peter’s Hill, and the species found by 
Wilson in western China have also been planted on the southern slope 
of Bussey Hill, just below the Overlook. The best known of the 
Asiatic Crabapples in gardens is called Malus floribunda. It is shrubby 
rather than treelike in habit and makes a broad, round-topped bush 
sometimes twenty-five feet tall and broad. This plant blooms profusely 
every year and is most beautiful when the flowers begin to open for 
they open gradually and in succession, and the contrast of the white 
flowers with the bright rose-colored flower-buds greatly adds to the 
beauty of both. The fruit is not much larger than a pea, and adds 
little to the ornamental value of this plant. The origin of Malus flor- 
ibunda is obscure. Although first sent to Europe from Japan more 
than sixty years ago, it is not a native of Japan and was probably 
carried there from China with many other plants found in Japanese 
gardens and long believed by European travellers to be native to the 
Island Empire. By some botanists it is thought to be a hybrid, and 
although its seedlings show some variation this hypothesis has not yet 
been clearly proved. The whole question of the origin and proper lim- 
itation of the species of Asiatic Crabapples is greatly complicated by 
the fact that all Apples hybridize so freely that plants raised from seed 
gathered from plants in a large collection like the one in the Arbore- 
tum rarely resemble the parent plant. This tendency to natural 
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