1877 .] 
AMERICAN AGRICULTURIST. 
341 
The Tufted Marshallia. 
We like to see the names of American Botanists 
commemorated by American plants, but we have 
flesh-color. Though a native much further south, 
this species is hardy near New York, blooming in 
June; while it can not be regarded as a very showy 
border plant, it is an exceedingly neat one, and its 
modest flower-heads, being on long stems, work 
from seed 6ent to Cambridge from St. Petersburg, 
soon after Maximowicz’s discovery. These speci¬ 
mens, although in a very exposed situation, are per¬ 
fectly hardy, and are already some 16 feet high, 
having flowered, and borne fruit last year for the 
the tufted marshallia. —(Marshallia ccespitosa.) 
the mantchooriah cork-teee. —{Phellodendron Amurense.) 
always thought it a pity that good old Humphry 
Marshall should have had his name attached to a 
genus of low herbs. The author of “ The Ameri¬ 
can Grove ” ( Arbustum Americanum) —a description 
of our native forest trees and shrubs, published in 
1785, and regarded as the first botanical work by 
a native of the country—should have had a genus 
of trees dedicated to him, rather than the humble 
composite which is now known as Marshallia. 
Those not very familiar with such matters would 
hardly suppose, either from the plant itself, or 
from the drawing here given, the Marshallia to be¬ 
long to the Composite family, as the best known 
among those, have the heads of flowers surrounded 
by a circle of conspicuous ray-flowers, as is striking- j 
ly seen in the Sunflower. Indeed, the heads of j 
flowers strongly resemble those of a Scabious, or a : 
Thrift, though a close examination will show the j 
' structure peculiar to the composites. Four species 
of Marshallia are given in the Flora of North Amer¬ 
ica, all being southerners, and but one reaching as 
far north as Virginia. The one here figured, the 
Tufted Marshallia, M. ccespitosa, belongs rather to 
South-west, it being found on the moist prairies 
from Arkansas and further West to Texas. The 
narrow leaves, of the shape shown in the engraving, : 
are crowded to form a leafy, tuft at the base, 
from which arise the flowering stems, a foot or ! 
more high, which are leafy below and nearly naked ! 
above, and each bearing a somewhat hemispherical 
head of flowers, like that in the engraving, which 
is of the natural size. The small florets composing 
the head are all tubular; these in the other species j 
are pale blueish or purplish, but in this of a light I 
up readily into summer bouquets. If it were not 
half so attractive as it is, we should take pleasure 
in cultivating the plant, because it bears the name 
of one of the botanical worthies of the past century. 
The Mantchoorian Cork-Tree. 
BY PROF. C. S. SARGENT, DIRECTOR OF THE ARNOLD 
ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY. 
This tree, a native of the country watered by the 
Amoor River, where it was discovered some twenty 
years ago, by the Russian Maximo wicz, is known to j 
botanists as Phellodendron Amurense , the generic 
name (from the Greek phellos, cork, and dendron, 
tree,) having been bestowed upon it on account of 
its rough, corky bark. The largest specimens M. 
Maximowicz noticed were some 40 feet high, with 
straight stems, and round, dense heads of hand¬ 
some foliage. It bears opposite, unequally pinnate 
leaves, 15 to 20 inches long—the leaflets, of which 
there are 11 to 13, are lanceolate, and sharply ser¬ 
rate. Phellodendron is dioecious, that is, the male 
and female flowers are borne on separate plants.' 
The flowers, which are small, and inconspicuous, 
appear at the extremities of the branches, in rather 
loose spreading clusters, and these, on the female 
plant, are succeeded by black, pea-shaped fruit, 
thickly covered with glands containing a bitter-aro¬ 
matic oil, common to the great natural order Ruta- 
eece, or Rue-family, to which Phellodendron belongs. 
This tree is known in cultivation in this country by 
a male and female plant in oUr Arboretum, raised 
first time. The fact that the trees which have 
flowered in Europe up to the present time, are all 
males, adds to the interest and value of our female 
plant, which will be called on to supply seed to the 
lovers of rare trees, both at home and abroad. A 
large number of plants have already been raised 
from last year’s seed, and the still larger crop of 
the present season, will be carefully collected, and 
as widely distributed as possible to all who desire 
to cultivate this beautiful tree. 
When we remember the long list of our native 
trees rarely met with in cultivation, in spite of their 
beauty and varied usefulness, it seems a thankless 
task to recommend for general introduction a new 
comer, whatever merit it may possess. American 
planters move in very narrow ruts, and confine their 
selections to a small number of plants, many of 
which are but little suited to fulfill the objects for 
which they are employed. The Mantchoorian Cork- 
Tree, as we are forced to call it, for want of a bet¬ 
ter English name, has, however, a special claim to 
popularity. It belongs to a class of small trees 
and shrubs, which, like some of the Sumachs, and 
the Chinese Ailanthus, present a tropical or rather 
sub-tropical appearance, and are therefore valuable 
to contrast with our more common forms of arbo¬ 
real growth. Its freedom from the defects which 
render the Ailanthus unfit for ornamental planting, 
its superior size to any of the Sumachs, as well as 
its rapid growth, and great rarity, make this tree 
worthy of a place in even the smallest plantation. 
The accompanying figure represents a branch of the 
female plant, much reduced in size, and the male 
and female flowers about twice the natural size. 
