30 
tain ridges, and of Samarkand and although of some botanical interest 
it has little to recommend it as a garden plant in this region. In 1820 
an English botanist found in a collection of Chinese drawings in Lon- 
don the picture of a double yellow Rose to which he gave the name 
of R. xanthina, and many years later the single-flowered form of this 
Rose was found growing wild in Mongolia by the French missionary 
David. English botanists have usually confused this Chinese Rose with 
R. Ecae and it apparently had not been cultivated in the United States 
or Europe until 1908 when the Arboretum received from the Department 
of Agriculture seeds of this Rose gathered in China by its collector, 
Mr. F. N. Meyer. Both the single and double-flowered forms were 
raised from this seed and have flowered in the Arboretum this year. 
The flowers are larger than those of R. Ecae and bright clear yellow. 
These Roses appear to be perfectly at home in the Arboretum, but it 
is too soon to speak of their value in North American gardens. The 
single and the double-flowered varieties are much cultivated in the 
gardens of Peking. The last of the hardy yellow-flowered Roses, the 
so-called Austrian Briar, has suffered from too many names. Among 
others it has been called R. eglanteria and R. lutea., but its oldest 
name by which it must be known is R. foetida, an unfortunate name 
given to it because the flowers have a slight odor which some persons 
do not find pleasant. Although long known in gardens as the Austrian 
Briar, it is probably nowhere a native of western Europe but an in- 
habitant of the Crimea, the Caucasus, Persia, and probably central 
Asia. It has handsome bright yellow flowers and when it grows well 
is one of the most beautiful of all single-flowered Roses, but in this 
climate it does not always succeed and the plants are usually short-lived. 
It has never flowered better, perhaps, in the Arboretum than it has 
this year. The Copper Austrian Briar, which has the petals yellow on 
the outer surface and dark copper color on the inner surface, is be- 
lieved to be a variety of R. foetida (var. bicolor). In this climate this 
handsome plant is usually short-lived and is not a very satisfactory 
garden plant. There is a double-flowered variety of R. foetida in the 
collection (var. persiana), known as the Persian Yellow Rose. This 
plant was sent to England from Persia in 1838 and is sometimes culti- 
vated in American gardens. The flowers are more beautiful than those 
of the Harison Rose, but in this climate it does not grow so vigorously. 
Kolkwitzia amabilis. This native of western China is the only rep- 
resentative of a genus which is related to Diervilla and Abelia, and 
although it reached the Arboretum in 1908 it is now flowering for the 
first time. The flowers are borne in pairs on long stems at the ends 
of short, lateral, leafy branchlets an inch long with a two-lobed oblique 
corolla deep rose color in the bud, becoming paler after opening, the 
inner surface of the three divisions of the lower lobe being white 
blotched with orange color at the base. Kolkwitzia is an erect growing 
shrub with slender stems and branches and is apparently perfectly 
hardy. The Arboretum specimen is now nearly six feet high and can 
be seen covered with flowers in the Shrub Collection between the 
Honeysuckles and the Diervillas. 
