64 
hupehensis; this year it will be covered with flowers toward the end 
of the month. A Maackia from Korea, M. Faurei, is in the collection 
but has not flowered here. 
Sophora japonica, which is growing near the Maackias oh the right 
hand side of the Bussey Hill Road, is covered with flower-buds which 
will open in the course of the next few weeks. This is a Chinese tree 
in spite of its name which has been cultivated in Japan for more than 
a thousand years, but which as it first reached Europe from Japan 
was supposed to be a native of that country and so received a mis¬ 
leading name. The bark of the young branches and the leaves are 
dark green and the small white pea-shaped flowers which open here in 
August are produced in great numbers in narrow, erect terminal clus¬ 
ters. This Sophora has a trunk covered with rough pale bark and the 
old trees in the streets and squares of Peking where it has been much 
planted look from a distance like great Oak-trees. There are in the 
Arboretum collection in addition to the type the form with long pend¬ 
ant branches (var. pendula) a favorite, although it rarely if ever flow¬ 
ers, with those who fancy trees of abnormal growth. There are also 
in the collection young specimens of the tree with erect branches (var. 
pyramidalis) and of the form (var. rosea) on which the flowers are 
slightly tinged with rose color. There is a handsome tree of Sophora 
japonica near the northwest corner of the Boston Public Garden, and 
a much larger one in Roslyn, Long Island. 
The Aralia Family furnishes the Arboretum with three summer flow¬ 
ering trees, Acanthopanax ricinifolium, Aralia sptnosa, and Aralia 
chinensis. The Acanthopanax is a tree which is common in the forests 
of northern Japan and Korea where it is often seventy or eighty feet 
high with a massive trunk and great wide-spreading branches armed, 
like the stems of young trees, with many stout prickles. The leaves 
hang down on long stalks and are nearly circular, five- or seven-lobed 
and often fifteen or sixteen inches in diameter. The small white flow¬ 
ers are produced in compact, long-stalked clusters which form a flat 
compound terminal panicle from twelve to eighteen inches across and 
are followed late in autumn by shining black fruits which do not fall 
until after the beginning of winter. This tree is perfectly hardy in 
the Arboretum where it has been growing for thirty years and where 
it has flowered and ripened its seeds now for several seasons. It is 
one of the most interesting trees in the collection and, because it is so 
unlike other trees of the northern hemisphere, it is often said to 
resemble a tree of the tropics. Aralia spinosa, the so-called Hercules’ 
Club of the southern states where it is a common inhabitant of the 
borders of woods and the banks of streams, is a tree often thirty feet 
high with a tall trunk and wide-spreading branches covered with stout 
orange-colored prickles. The leaves, which are borne at the ends of 
the branches, are long-stalked, twice pinnate, and from three to four 
feet long and two and one-half feet wide. The small white flowers are 
arranged in compound clusters which rise singly or two or three to¬ 
gether above the leaves and are three or four feet long. The fruit is 
black, rather less than a quarter of an inch in diameter, and ripens in 
early autumn. It is now well established on the slope at the northern 
