27 
the species recently discovered in central and western China are now 
established in the Arboretum, and, flowering more freely as the plants 
grow older now begin to show their true value as garden plants in this 
climate. Perhaps the most distinct and certainly the most unusual of 
these Lilacs is Syringa refiexa. On this plant the flower-cluster is 
compact, cylindric, unbranched, from an inch to an inch and a quarter 
in diameter, long stalked and is gracefully arching and reflexed. The 
flowers are deep rose-color with a long slender corolla-tube, and 
have the disagreeable odor, although to a less degree than those of the 
Chinese Syringa villosa to which this species and the next are closely 
related, as is shown in their ample leaves dark green on the upper sur¬ 
face and somewhat pale, and slightly hairy on the lower surface. The 
other species in this group now in flower, Syringa Sargentiana , differs 
in its rather paler flowers white on the inner surface of the lobes of 
the corolla, and arranged in large, loose, long-branched, erect or spread¬ 
ing clusters sometimes eighteen inches long and twelve inches across. 
The leaves of this plant are hardly distinguishable from those of S. 
rejiexa. Five of these new Lilacs belonging to the group of which 
Syringa pubescens may be taken as the type are flowering freely this 
year; they all have fragrant flowers, although less fragrant than those 
of S. pubescens , and slender corolla-tubes. Syringa Koehneana, which 
is probably a native of Korea, has broad leaves unusually large for a 
species in this group, and short, broad, compact clusters of flowers 
which are pale rose-color on the outside of the corolla-tubes and pure 
white on the inner surface of the corolla-lobes. On Syringa yunnan- 
ensis from southwestern China, which is a narrow shrub with erect 
stems and branches, the flowers are produced in narrow, branched, erect 
clusters and are white faintly tinged with rose and very fragrant. 
Syringa tomentella , of which 5. Wilsonii is a synonym, is a larger and 
more vigorous plant with erect stems, dull green leaves, and open 
branched panicles of the palest rose-colored flowers with rather thicker 
corolla-tubes than those of the other species of this group. ] Syringa 
microphylla , so named for its small dark green leaves, is flowering this 
year more freely than it has in the Arboretum before; the flowers are 
small, with narrow corolla-tubes, and are pleasantly fragrant. Unlike 
other Lilacs, S . microphylla has in previous years flowered again in 
October. S. Sweginzowii is covered with flowers again this spring, as 
it has been now for several seasons. It is a tall shrub with dull green 
leaves and narrow clusters of fragrant flowers half an inch long, flesh- 
colored in the bud, becoming nearly white after the flowers open. This 
species blooms freely as a small plant, and is perhaps the most attract¬ 
ive of the new Lilacs with slender corrolla-tubes, although it does not 
equal in beauty and fragrance S. pubescens , which has been an inhabit¬ 
ant of the Arboretum for a quarter of a century. 
Rosa sertata. There is now flowering in the Shrub Collection a plant 
of the northern form of this Chinese Rose which at this writing is one of 
the most charming plants in the Arboretum. It is a bush three feet 
high with slender gracefully spreading and arching stems which form 
an open head six feet across. The leaves are now only about an inch 
long with seven minute leaflets. The flowers are solitary or rarely in 
pairs on the ends of short lateral branchlets crowded from end to end 
on the branches, and are rather less than three-quarters of an inch in 
diameter with light pure pink petals, and are slightly fragrant. 
