11 
may be developed into a valuable fruit tree for the northern United 
States. It is one of the three species of Pear-trees raised at the Ar¬ 
boretum in 1883 from seeds sent here from Peking by the late Dr. 
Bretschneider. This tree has not been attacked by blight here and 
produces globose yellow juicy fruits of good flavor, and up to an inch 
and a half in diameter. Nothing is known to us here of this species 
as a wild tree but from it have evidently been developed in China the 
tree which produces the large round or pyriform juicy fruits of excel¬ 
lent flavor conspicuous in the Peking markets in September and Octo¬ 
ber. The other North China Pear-trees raised from Dr. Bretschneider’s 
seeds are Pyrus betulaefolia and P. phaeocarpa. The former is a large 
tree with small flowers and leaves and small globose brown fruit. It 
has grown rapidly, and is very hardy and at one time it was thought 
that it would prove a good stock on which to work orchard Pear-trees. 
Later it has often suffered from blight and so can now only be consid¬ 
ered valuable as a garden ornament. Dr. Bretschneider’s third species 
proved, when it flowered and fruited a few years ago, to be an unde¬ 
scribed species and it has been named Pyrus phaeocarpa. The small 
russet-brown fruit is globose on some trees and pyriform on others. 
The European Pears, which are of smaller size, flower later than the 
Chinese species. The original Pear collection is on the left hand side 
of Forest Hills Road and a larger and more complete collection has 
recently been planted in the hollow at the eastern base of Peter’s Hill. 
The best specimens of the species introduced by Wilson from western 
China will be found on the southern slope of Bussey Hill. 
Shad Bushes, as the American species of Amelanchier are often 
called, are beautiful and interesting trees or shrubs which bloom in 
early spring and several of them are now conspicuous in the Arbore¬ 
tum. Amelanchier like Crataegus and Prunophora, the name of the 
Plum group in Prunus, is a genus almost entirely confined to North 
America. One small, shrubby species grows on the mountains of central 
Europe and another shrubby species in China and Japan. The other 
species are American and grow from the shores of the Atlantic to those 
of the Pacific and from Canada to the shores of the Gulf of Mexico. 
The first of the Shad bushes to flower here, Amelanchier canadensis, 
opened its flower-buds on the 30th of April. This is a tree occasion¬ 
ally 70 feet high with a trunk 18 inches in diameter. Rare and of com¬ 
paratively small size in Canada and New England, it grows to almost 
its largest size in western New York, and in the Gulf States, where it 
is found as far west as western Louisiana, it is the only species. Long 
confused with the common tree species of the northern states, A. laevis, 
it is still rarely cultivated and a comparatively new introduction into 
the Arboretum. Here it is perfectly hardy and promises to become a 
large tree. As it flowers at the same time as the early flowered Jap¬ 
anese Cherry-trees it should prove a good subject to plant with them. 
A dwarf northern Shad Bush Amelanchier Bartramiana, flowered this 
year as early as A. canadensis. This is an inhabitant of cold, north¬ 
ern swamps, but is now well established in the Arboretum. It is a 
slender shrub with small flowers arranged, not in racemes, like those 
of the other species, but in one or two-flowered clusters. In early 
spring it is distinct in the yellow bronze color of the unfolding leaves. 
