Page:TheTreesOfGreatBritainAndIreland vol02B.djvu/381

Rh According to Nicholson, it is very easy to transplant, and bears drought well. It is propagated either by seeds or by root-cuttings. Pieces of the roots, 4 to 5 inches long, placed in prepared beds and kept moist, will develop in the first year into plants three or four feet high. Some of the cuttings, however, will not start into growth until the following year.

I have raised seedlings from American seeds, which, being large and hard, should be soaked in warm water for some days before sowing. The seedlings grow slowly, and should be kept under glass for a year or two before planting out.

In spite of Loudon's assertion to the contrary, it appears to flower very rarely in England, the only record being at Claremont, where Mr. Burrell says it produces flowers freely early in summer. Pods have never been produced, so far as we know, in this country.

It is a rare tree in cultivation; but though stiff and peculiar in habit, it is not at all ungainly when well-grown, even when bare of leaves. It comes into leaf very late in the season, and it drops its leaves early in autumn, the stalks, however, often remaining on the tree for weeks. The foliage, like that of many leguminous plants, shows the phenomenon of sleep, the leaflets drooping and closing together soon after sunset in summer.

There are two trees at Claremont, which were about 55 feet high in 1888. When I measured them in 1907 the largest was 60 feet by 6 feet 7 inches, and seemed quite healthy; the other was broken.

A tree at Chiswick House measured, in 1903, 53 feet high by 3½ feet in girth. Another at Barton, Suffolk, was in 1904 57 feet high by 5 feet 2 inches in girth at two feet from the ground, and divided above this into two stems. In the Botanic Garden at Cambridge there is a good specimen, which was 45 feet by 3 feet 9 inches in 1906. There are three smaller trees in the Oxford Botanic Garden.

At Kayhough, Kew, in the garden of Mr. Charles Wright, there is a healthy and well-shaped tree, which was in November 1905, 40 feet high by 2 feet 9 inches in girth, with a bole of 6 feet, dividing into two main stems. This tree was purchased from a nurseryman at Kingston in 1878, when it was said to be twentytwo years old, and was then about two-thirds its present height. After transplanting, it made no growth for three years; but since then it has grown steadily though very slowly, and has not been injured in any way by severe winters, though it has never flowered. It has been much surpassed in rate of growth by an Ailanthus in the same garden. There is a tree of about the same size growing close to Mr. Clarke's house at Andover, Hants, which is fifty to sixty years old and measures 43 feet by 2 feet 10 inches. There are several small trees in Kew Gardens, the largest one being near the main entrance.

It seems evident that the tree, to attain a large size, requires a much greater