36 
eration. A hybrid, M. major, often called M. Thompsoniana, between 
M. glauca and M. tripetala, another American species, has the general 
appearance of M. glauca but has larger leaves and larger fragrant 
flowers. 
Halimodendrcm argenteum in the Shrub Collection is now covered with 
its pale rose-colored, pea-shaped, fragrant flowers which are borne in 
short clusters; their beauty is heightened by the light color of the 
leaves which are covered with pale silky hairs. This shrub or small 
tree remains in bloom during several weeks. 
Cornus rugosa. Attention is called again to the value of this com¬ 
mon native shrub for the decoration of parks and gardens where, like 
many other eastern American trees and shrubs, it is rarely seen. C. 
rugosa , or C. circinata, the name by which it is best known, is a shrub 
sometimes ten feet high which with plenty of space spreads into broad 
thickets. The young branches are green blotched with purple, becoming 
purple as they grow older. The leaves are broad, sometimes nearly cir¬ 
cular, and dark bluish-green; the flowers are ivory-white, in compact 
clusters, and are followed in the early autumn by bright blue or nearly 
white fruits. This Cornel has been much planted in the Arboretum 
and is greatly improved by good cultivation. It can be seen in the 
Cornel Group at the junction of the Meadow and the Bussey Hill Roads; 
and the large individual plants, the great clumps on the right-hand side 
of the Bussey Hill Road beyond the Lilacs, and the masses among the 
Hickories in the groups of these trees show the value of this shrub 
in park planting when broad compact masses of foliage are needed. 
The Tree Lilacs. As the flowers of the late-flowering group of Lilacs 
fade the earliest flowers of the so-called Tree Lilacs begin to open. 
There are three of these Lilacs which all bear large clusters of white 
or yellowish white flowers which have the disagreeable odor of the 
flowers of the Privet, and like those of the Privets the leaves fall in the 
autumn without change of color. The first of these plants to flower, 
S. amurensis, a native of eastern Siberia as its name implies, is a shrub 
in habit, twelve or fifteen feet high with dark close bark, broad thick 
leaves dark green above and pale below, and short, broad, unsymmet- 
rical flower-clusters. <S. pekinensis from northern China flowers next. 
This is also shrubby in habit, sometimes twenty or thirty feet tall and 
broad, with stout, spreading stems covered with yellow-brown bark 
separating readily into thin plates like that of some of the Birch-trees, 
dark green, narrow, pointed leaves and short and unsymmetrical flower- 
clusters usually in pairs at the ends of the branches. This species 
holds its leaves later in the autumn than the others, and produces great 
quantities of flowers every year, the other species usually flowering 
abundantly only every other year. The last of the Tree Lilacs to 
flower, S. japonica, is a native of northern Japan, and is really a tree 
sometimes forty feet high with a tall straight trunk covered with 
lustrous brown bark like the bark of a Cherry-tree, a round-topped 
head of upright branches, broad, thick, dark green leaves, and erect, 
mostly symmetrical flower-clusters from twelve to eighteen iriches long. 
This is one of the handsomest of the small trees which bloom here at 
the end of June or early in July. 
