6 
for fully sixty years, they have never grown to a large size or given 
much satisfaction in western gardens. The trouble has been in the 
stock on which these double-flowered plants have been grafted. The 
proper stock for them is naturally the single-flowered species of which 
they are varieties, and if such stock is used there can be little doubt 
that larger and healthier trees will be secured than have been obtained 
when other species have been used as stock in Japanese and in Amer¬ 
ican and European nurseries. It is fortunate that the plants of the 
Sargent Cherry produce every year good crops of seeds in the Arbore¬ 
tum; these seeds are carefully gathered and widely distributed so that 
there is reason to hope that in a few years this tree will adorn many 
American parks and gardens and supply stock on which the hand¬ 
somest of the double-flowered Cherries can be successfully grafted. 
Primus subhirtella. This is the Spring Cherry of the Japanese, 
which one traveller has described as the most delightful and floriferous 
of all Japanese Cherries. It is a large shrub rather than a tree, and 
few plants can produce more flowers than the two large specimens in 
the Arboretum where they have been growing for twenty-five years. 
The flowers are drooping, pale pink becoming nearly white as they 
begin to fade. Those of no other single-flowered Cherry which has 
been grown in the Arboretum last so long in good condition. This 
Cherry is not known as a wild plant, but it is a good deal cultivated 
in the gardens of western Japan although rare in those of Tokyo. Un¬ 
fortunately it does not reproduce itself from seed, for the seedlings 
are those of a tall slender tree common in the forests of central Japan 
to which the name of Prunus subhirtella var. ascendens has been given. 
This is still a rare tree in cultivation and its value in this climate is 
not yet established. A form of the variety ascendens of Prunus sub¬ 
hirtella has pendulous branches and is the well known Japanese Weep¬ 
ing Cherry-tree (var. pendula) now common in American gardens. 
Prunus subhirtella can be slowly propagated by soft wood cuttings, 
but the best way to increase it is by grafting or budding it on its own 
seedlings. Seeds are produced in quantity on the Arboretum plants 
and will be distributed to nurserymen anxious to obtain stock on which 
to work the true P. subhirtella. When the stocks are ready the Ar¬ 
boretum will supply a moderate number of grafts, and the nurseryman 
who will make it his business to produce a supply of this beautiful 
Cherry for American gardens will do a good thing for this country and 
incidentally for himself. 
Prunus yedoensis. This is the Cherry-tree which has been planted 
in great numbers in the squares, parks and temple grounds of Tokyo. 
It is a fast-growing short-lived tree rarely fifty feet high, with a short 
trunk not more than a foot in diameter and wide-spreading or erect 
branches. The flowers are white and slightly fragrant, and are fol¬ 
lowed by abundant small black fruit. This Cherry reproduces itself 
from seed and there is therefore no reason why it should not be com¬ 
mon in American gardens. 
