60 
it will grow taller and form a tall Larch-like trunk. As Pseudolarix 
seeds are produced in quantity by at least two trees in the United 
States, and probably by several trees in Europe, there is no reason 
why this tree should not be taken up by American nurserymen and 
brought within reach of the lovers of handsome and interesting trees. 
The trees at Flushing and at Wellesley are not producing seeds this 
year. 
Zelkova serrata, the Keaki of the Japanese, is another Asiatic tree 
which is still too little known in the United States. The oldest tree 
in this country is growing on the estate of Mr. Henry Everett in 
Barnstable, Massachusetts. The seeds which produced this tree were 
brought from Japan in 1862 by John Wilson, who gave them to Cap¬ 
tain Frank Hinckley. Only one plant was raised from these seeds. It 
is now a broad-headed tree with a short, stout trunk divided into sev¬ 
eral large ascending stems. A little later seeds of the Keaki were 
sent from Japan to the Parsons nursery at Flushing, either by Dr. 
Hall or by Mr. Thomas Hogg, and the best of the trees, the result of 
this introduction, known to the Arboretum are in Dr. Hall’s plantation 
in Bristol, Rhode Island. The largest of these trees are now fully 
seventy feet high with tall stems from two to two and a half feet in 
diameter. These trees have for years been producing large crops of 
seeds and quantities of seedlings spring up under the trees, and at 
long distances from them, the seeds being widely scattered by the 
wind. A specimen with a tall clean stem and shapely head which has 
been planted by the roadside in Warren, the next town to Bristol, in¬ 
dicates that the Japanese Zelkova might be successfully used as a street 
or roadside tree. It is as a timber tree, however, that this Zelkova 
deserves the attention of Americans. It is the most important hard¬ 
wood tree of Japan and Korea. The wood is tough, elastic and dur¬ 
able in the ground and when exposed to the air. It is considered the 
best wood for building in the Empire, and furnishes the great round 
columns which support the roofs of Japanese temples. It is univer¬ 
sally used in Japan in making jinrikishas, and quantities of the wood 
are sent from Korea into China for this purpose. The Keaki alone has 
made the jinrikisha possible just as the Hickory-tree has made possible 
in this country the light wagon and the trotting horse. The demand 
for the wood has made the Keaki comparatively rare. That it was 
once a noble tree, however, is shown by the great specimens which 
have been preserved in temple gardens and by village roadsides. Such 
trees are often at best one hundred feet high with the trunks eight or 
ten feet in diameter. 
Viburnums. The handsomest Viburnums this week in the Arboretum 
are V. prunifolium, a tree species of the Middle States, with dark 
purple leaves and fruit which is still pale pink but later will be dark 
blue, and the Japanese V. dilatatum , a broad round-headed shrub with 
wide flat clusters of small bright red fruit, and dark red almost 
purple leaves. 
