2 
THE LADY’S MAGAZINE OP GARDENING. 
some years in Paris. In 1834 M. Neumann, the chief gardener in the 
Jardin des Plantes, received some seeds in a little China pot from Japan. 
The seeds being small, he sowed them in a flowerpot, which he placed 
in the hothouse, but only one seed vegetated. This plant he nourished 
with great care, but it grew slowly and appeared sickly. As he observed 
that after it lost its leaves in autumn, the heat of the stove made it bud 
again immediately, he felt convinced that the stove was too hot for it, 
and he removed it to the greenhouse, which evidently suited it much 
better, though still it grew slowly. He now took some cuttings from his 
plant, which struck readily; and he then ventured to remove the parent 
plant into the open air. It immediately began to grow vigorously; and 
though only six inches high when planted in spring, it became three feet 
high before autumn, growing with a strong erect stem, and forming a 
large bushy head. As soon as winter approached, it lost all its leaves at 
once, without their becoming withered, like the Catalpa and the 
Diospyros; but it regained them early in the following spring ; and it has 
P. imperialis. P. imperials. 
since grown so rapidly that it measured, when we saw it, in July 1840, 
very nearly twelve feet high. It was then growing vigorously, and had a 
profusion of fine large leaves, which cast a refreshing shade. M. Neu¬ 
mann protected it for several winters with mats, but he now finds it 
quite hardy; and in the winter of 1838-9, when the thermometer 
(Fahrenheit) was below zero (14° Reaum.), it did not lose even the 
tips of its branches. M. Neumann calls it the king of hardy trees, from 
its beautiful flowers and magnificent leaves, some of which, taken from 
the lower part of the tree in July 1840, measured fifteen inches in 
breadth and eighteen inches in length. 
