15 
Malus floribunda, by many persons considered the most beautiful of 
Crabapples, was introduced into Holland by Von Siebold in 1853 from 
Nagasaki, Japan. The place where it grows wild still remains un¬ 
known, although possibly it is one of the high mountains of Kyushu. 
Japanese botanists and nurserymen confuse it with the Parkman Crab, 
and Wilson has not seen it in Japanese gardens. It is a broad, round- 
topped, treelike shrub sometimes twenty-five feet tall with stout 
branches and slender arching and pendant branchlets. The clustered 
flowers are white when fully expanded, rose-red in the bud, and as they 
open in succession the two colors make a beautiful contrast. The fruit 
is about the size of a pea yellowish or yellowish brown; from some 
plants it falls in the early autumn, on others it remains on the branch¬ 
es during the winter or until devoured by birds who are particularly 
fond of It. Several plants with persistent fruit are growing close to the 
Administration Building in the Arboretum, and during- the winter are 
filled with numerous species of birds, including pheasants who are fond 
of these Crabapples. A hybrid between M. floribunda and perhaps M. 
robusta appeared in the Arboretum in 1883 among a lot of seedlings of 
M. floribunda and has been named M. Arnoldiana. It has the habit 
and abundant flowers of M. floribunda, but the flowers and fruit are 
nearly twice as large. It is a handsomer plant than M. floribunda and 
one of the most beautiful of the Crabapples in the Arboretum. 
Malus Sieboldii is another of the species introduced in 1853 from the 
gardens of Japan into Europe by Von Siebold. It is a low, dense shrub 
of spreading habit with the leaves on vigorous branchlets three-lobed, 
small flowers white tinged with rose in color, and small yellow fruits. 
Von Siebold's Crab is really a dwarf form of a species common on the 
Korean Island of Quelpaert, and on the mountains of central Japan 
and Hokkaido, to which the name var. arborescens has been given. 
This is a tree often thirty feet or more tall, with ascending, wide- 
spreading branches, twiggy branchlets and minute fruit yellow on some 
and red on other individuals. Although the flowers are small, they are 
produced in immense quantities, and this species has the advantage of 
flowering later than the other Asiatic Crabapples. 
Malus Sargentii from salt marshes in the neighborhood of Muroran 
in northern Japan, where it was discovered by Professor Sargent in 
1892, has qualities which give it a field of usefulness peculiarly Its own. 
This species is a dwarf with rigid and spreading branches, the lower 
branches flat on the ground; it is well suited for covering slopes and 
banks. The flowers are in umbel-like clusters, saucer-shaped, round 
and of the purest white, and are followed by masses of wine-colored 
fruit which is covered by a slight bloom and unless eaten by birds 
remains on the plants well into the spring, 
Malus prunifolia var. rinki is the wild parent discovered by Wilson 
in western China of the race of apples long cultivated in the Orient, 
and since it fruits freely in the hot moist valleys of central China as 
well as in the cold regions of northern Korea it may prove of value to 
pomologists in breeding new races of hardy Apple-trees. 
