52 
lengthening racemes until October. The other species, I. Gerardiana 
and /. decora, are killed to the ground every winter, but like herba¬ 
ceous plants produce new stems in the spring which never fail to flower 
during the summer. I. decora is a native of southern China, and in 
the Arboretum the flowers are pure white. I. Gerardiana, which is a 
native of the northwestern Himalayas, has gray-green foliage and rose- 
purple flowers. This is the least beautiful of the five species now 
growing in the Arboretum. The collection still needs I. hebepetala, 
another Himalayan plant which is rarely seen in English gardens, It 
has red flowers, in elongated racemes, and, judging by the picture of 
it which has been published is a handsome plant. This and another 
red-flowered Himalayan species, I. atropurpurea, are desired by the 
Arboretum. 
Kubus lacimatus. This European plant, which produces long red 
stems and deeply divided leaflets, is one of the handsomest of the 
Brambles and is well suited to cover banks or to train over fences and 
arbors. It is now in flower in the Shrub Collection. In England it is 
valued for its fruit which is described as “one of the finest blackberries 
in size and flavor.” In competition with some of the American black¬ 
berries it will not probably find much favor in this country. There 
are two double-flowered Brambles in the collection which are also in 
bloom and which are also important ornamental plants, also well suited 
to cover arbors and fences. They produce in a season stems from ten 
to twenty feet long and their white or pink flowers in long, many- 
flowered crowded clusters resemble miniature Roses. These plants are 
called Rufus ulmifolius var. bellidiflorus and R. thy rsoideus fore pleno, 
and seem to be little known in the United States. 
Sehizophragma hydrangeoides must be included among the shrubs 
which flower in July. This beautiful climbing plant has not had a suc¬ 
cessful career in the Arboretum. Seeds were first sent here in Decem¬ 
ber, 1876, from Sapporo in northern Japan with those of Hydrangea 
petiolaris, Syringa japonica, Phellodendron sachalinense and other in¬ 
teresting plants. A large number of Sehizophragma plants were raised 
and sent to other American and European gardens. Those planted in 
the Arboretum never flourished, and soon disappeared, probably because 
the right place was not found for them. Plants raised later also dis¬ 
appeared; and it is a matter of some satisfaction at the Arboretum 
that this beautiful plant, after forty-three years of failure, is at last 
established on the Administration Building where it has flowered this 
year for the first time. It clings as firmly to the brick wall as Hy¬ 
drangea petiolaris', the leaves are smaller, more circular in shape, more 
coarsely toothed and of a darker color. When in flower Sehizophragma 
is more interesting, although not as showy as the Hydrangea, for in¬ 
stead of the surrounding ring of neutral flowers there are only two 
neutral flowers to each of the divisions of the large compound inflores¬ 
cence; these neutral flowers are white, ovate, often an inch or more 
long, and hang on long slender stems an inch in length. Schizo- 
phragma appears to be an exceedingly rare plant in American gardens 
in which Hydrangea petiolaris often passes for it. 
These Bulletins will now be discontinued until the autumn. 
