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and free from branches, except at the summit, excelling in this respect most broad- leaved trees. It grows fast in youth, continuing its growth in height to sixty or eighty years old, afterwards mainly increasing in girth. It is moderate in its demands for light, and gives good coppice shoots.

This species was introduced into cultivation in 1760, the oldest known tree in Europe being one! in the garden of M. Lemmonier at Petit Montreuil, near Paris, which was cut down in 1820, when it was 72 feet in height and 6 feet 8 inches in girth. It is probable that the elder Michaux, who saw this tree growing in northern Persia in 1782, also introduced seed.'| Further consignments’ were sent to France in 1831, by Chevalier Gamba, French Consul at Tiflis. Seeds from this source germinated after lying eighteen months in the ground; but Gay, in a note in the Kew Herbarium, states that this tardy germination was probably accidental, as seeds from Karabagh, which he sowed in the last days of March, produced seedlings, which were peeping out of the ground at the end of May. (A.H.)

This tree is now rarely seen in nurseries, though it is easily propagated by suckers, and seed could be procured without difficulty from its native country. In consequence it is hardly known to modern gardeners, though both from its ornamental habit and valuable timber it would be much better worth planting than many trees of more recent introduction.

The principal point to be attended to is to protect it from frost, and prune it carefully until the main stem has attained the desired height; and to plant it ina deep, rich alluvial soil, and warm, sheltered situation. So far as ] have been able to learn, no tree has produced fertile seed in this country.

A remarkable tree at Wardour Castle, Tisbury, Wiltshire, is reputed by tradition to have been sent, when quite young, from North America by the second Lord Baltimore, about 1632, and has been supposed’ to be Planera aquatica, Gmelin,’ a native of swamps in the south-eastern United States. There must be some error in the tradition, as the tree is undoubtedly Zelkova crenata. It is known as the Iron tree, and the late Lord Arundell of Wardour assured me that this name, used in America for the Hornbeam and Hop Hornbeam, was a proof of its American origin. He also believed that the tree had been cut down during the siege of Wardour Castle in Cromwell’s time, and had afterwards produced from the stool the seventeen

1 André Michaux, Mémoire sur le Zelkoua (Paris, 1831).

2 See a lengthened correspondence concerning this tree in Garden, xxiv. 370 (1883), xxvi. 38 (1884), and xxxii. 92 (1887).

3 This species was introduced into England in 1816, according to Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. iii. 1413 (1838); but it appears to be unsuitable for our climate, and no specimens are known to us to exist, except two plants in the Elm collection at Kew, about 8 feet high, which were introduced in 1897, and are thriving so far.