176 
THE NATIONAL NURSERYMAN 
THE CHINESE 
By F. T. 
I was very much pleased in reading in a recent issue an 
article on the Chinese Arbor Vitse, but the writer did not say 
all that can be said in its favor. 
And he has not known them so long as we for he says they 
were introduced from China about twenty years ago, while I 
ARBOR VITAE 
RAMSEY 
Foremothers of Valuable Hybrids 
The more dwarfish compact and pyramidal forms so 
popular for formal planting in the south are of the same blood 
as Chinese but do not transplant so easily as do their more 
open growing kinsmen. In planting seed from common 
A tree grown from seed of Chinese Arbor Vitae, with foliage like a Pyramidal Cypress—Rosedale Arbor Vitae on left. 
enclose a photo of a tree at San Angelo that we sold thirty or 
thirty-one years ago. We commenced selling them thirty- 
eight years ago. 
They are grown easily from seed and one rarely dies in 
transplanting. Two years ago of one lot of 950 three to four 
foot trees all lived but two trees. I do not know the northern 
limit of their range but I know they go as far as Kansas, and 
extend south to the gulf. They seem to reach perfection in 
the south part of the Texas Panhandle in the arid atmos¬ 
phere. 
They are doubly appreciated here because we cannot grow 
the American Arbor Vitae, I doubt if one can be kept alive two 
years. Their range barely comes into the sandy humid north 
eastern part of our state. 
Chinese one gets a small percent of dwarf compact types. I 
suppose Berckmans’ Nana originated in that way. 
Mr. Otto Locke of the Comal Springs Nursery in that way 
originated the Bonito, and that is Spanish for pretty. It 
makes a perfect ball in an intense green and propagates and 
transplants easily. 
The peagreen Rosedale Arbor Vitas came from seed of a 
Chinese of smooth pyramidal outline that grew near a blue 
Japan Cedar, Retinospora squarrosa. I believe I am the 
only person living that remembers seeing thirty years ago the 
two parents on the grounds of the Rosedale Nursery while 
Mr. Wm. Watson was living and I also saw the two or three 
first seedling Rosedales in the nursery rows. 
