22 
esting in having furnished from their fruit one of the great states of 
the union with its popular name. A related species, A. arguta, has 
not before bloomed so well in the Arboretum. It is a small yellow- 
flowered shrub, with leaves composed usually of nine narrow long- 
pointed leaflets, which has been found only in west central Oklahoma 
and in a few places in northern and central Texas. The yellow-flow¬ 
ered Appalachian species, A. octandra , the largest of the Buckeyes, 
blooms a little later, but a shrubby species from central Georgia (A. 
georgiana) is just now covered with its short compact clusters of large 
yellow and red flowers. Of recent discovery and introduction this 
Buckeye has proved a first-rate garden plant in this climate. Aesculus 
Pavia, the best known, in books at least, of the red-flowered southern 
Buckeyes, is in bloom this year for the first time in the Arboretum. 
An even more beautiful plant, the red-flowered variety of A. discolor 
(var. mollis) will be covered in a few days with its scarlet flowers. 
Generally distributed from the coast of North Carolina to southern 
Arkansas and western Texas, and when in flower one of the most 
brilliant plants of the south, it is a matter of congratulation that it 
can be grown successfully in Massachusetts. Many of the handsomest 
of the Horsechestnut-trees are natural hybrids. The first of these ap¬ 
peared in France more than a century ago and is evidently a cross of 
two American species, A. octandra and A. Pavia. There are many 
forms of this hybrid to which the general name A. versicolor has been 
given. The flowers are red and yellow in various degrees and some of 
these forms can be placed among the most beautiful of the Buckeyes. 
The next hybrid appeared many years ago in a nursery at Ghent in 
Belgium, evidently a cross between the common Horsechestnut and the 
American red-flowered A. Pavia. This is the common red-flowered 
Horsechestnut of gardens the name of which is A. carnea. The flowers 
vary from flesh color to the deep red of those of the tree known as 
A. Briotii. Trees of this and other varieties of the red-flowered 
Horsechestnut are now in bloom in the Horsechestnut Group on the 
right-hand side of the Meadow Road. A single tree of an interesting 
hybrid Buckeye, A. Bushii , was found a few years ago in the woods 
near Fulton on the Red River in Arkansas, evidently produced by the 
crossing of a form of A. glabra with the red-flowered A. discolor var. 
mollis. The original tree has disappeared but this hybrid is fortunately 
preserved in a tree growing on Peter's Hill in the Arboretum where 
it has flowered regularly for several years. This perhaps is the rarest 
tree in the Arboretum. 
American Magnolias. Several of these trees are in bloom in the 
group on the right-hand side of the Jamaica Plain Gate. Unlike most 
of the Asiatic species the American Magnolias flower after the appear¬ 
ance of the leaves; they are hardy and handsome trees. A hundred 
and fifty years ago letters of English plant lovers written to their 
American correspondents contained many appeals for Magnolia plants 
and seeds, and in the early years of the nineteenth century these 
trees were to be found in the principal collections of plants in the 
middle states. To the present generation they are almost unknown, 
and it is only in a few American nurseries that an occasional plant of 
one or two of the species can be found. There are six of these Mag¬ 
nolias, but one of them, M. pyramidata, grows only in the extreme 
southeastern corner of Alabama and adjacent Florida, and would not 
