7 
Amelanchiers. Shad Bushes, as Amelanchiers are often called be¬ 
cause they are supposed to flower when shad begin to ascend the rivers 
from the sea, add much to the beauty in early May of the Arboretum 
where they have been planted in considerable numbers. Amelanchier 
is almost entirely confined to North America where many species are 
found from Saskatchewan to Louisiana and from the Atlantic to the 
Pacific, one extra American species occurring in central Europe and 
another in central China. All Amelanchiers produce abundant pure 
white flowers in short drooping racemes, and blue-black sweet and edi¬ 
ble berry-like fruits. The American species vary from shrubs hardly 
more than a foot or two high up to trees exceptionally sixty or seventy 
feet tall. The first species to flower, A. canadensis , is the larger of 
the two tree species, and although it grows in western New York to a 
large size it is more common in the south where it is often the only spe¬ 
cies. The more common northern tree, A. laevis, is a native of the Ar¬ 
boretum and is readily distinguished in early spring by the purple color 
of its young leaves. A. oblongifolia, which is a large arborescent shrub, 
is also a native of the Arboretum. It is this species which is gray in 
early spring from the thick felt of pale hairs on the young leaves and 
flower-clusters, and which has been largely planted along the Arboretum 
drives and is in bloom this week. A large collection of the shrubby 
species, American and foreign, is in the border on the left-hand side 
of the Meadow Road and on some of these plants flowers will open un¬ 
til nearly the end of May. For the lovers of flowers the season of 
Shad Bushes is one of the interesting periods in the Arboretum. 
Unfolding leaves. The leaves of many trees are highly colored when 
they first unfold and such trees, like many of the American Oaks, are 
as distinct and attractive in the spring as they are in their autumn 
colors. In Massachusetts Oak leaves are still closely infolded in their 
buds, but young leaves now give beauty and distinction to at least two 
Asiatic trees, Cercidiphyllum japonicum and Acer griseum. The for¬ 
mer is an old inhabitant of the Arboretum, having been raised here 
first in 1878. It is the largest Japanese tree with deciduous leaves, 
growing from the ground with numerous great stems. The flowers and 
fruits are inconspicuous, but the pyramidal habit of the tree is hand¬ 
some and interesting. It owes its name to the shape of the leaves 
which resemble those of the Redbud ( Cercis ); these as they unfold are 
of a delicate rose pink color, and although they turn clear bright yel¬ 
low in the autumn it is during the last week of April and in the first 
days of May that the Cercidiphyllum is more beautiful than at any 
other season of the year. Acer griseum is a Chinese Box Elder or Ne- 
gundo discovered by Wilson in central China, and just now very distinct 
in the red color of the young leaves. This Maple as it grows on the 
mountains of China is a tree sometimes seventy feet high, with a short 
trunk and a rather narrow head of ascending branches. Among Maples 
it is distinct in the beautiful lustrous bright reddish brown bark which 
separates freely in thin plates like that of some Birch-trees. This is the 
most distinct and the handsomest of the Maples introduced from China in 
recent years which have proved perfectly hardy in the Arboretum, but 
unfortunately it is still extremely rare in western gardens. 
