garden at Busbridge, near Godalming, and another in the Chelsea Physic Garden, both raised from the seed sent by Père d'Incarville. The tree is here first described as Rhus sinense foliis alatis, foliolis oblongis acuminatis ad basin subrotundis et dentatis.[1]
Tree of Heaven
This name is often given to the tree in England, corresponding to the German Götterbaum. It is not the translation of any Chinese name, as has often been erroneously stated. Desfontaines' original description occurred in a rare book which has not been looked up by most writers on the tree. He was well aware that the tree came from China, but in selecting a name for the genus he took it from another species which he found figured in Rumphius' Hortus Amboinensis, v. cap. 57, tab. 132. This species, left undescribed by Desfontaines, is Ailanthus moluccana. Rumphius calls it arbor cœli, the equivalent of the native name in the Amboyna language, Aylanto, which signifies "a tree so tall as to touch the sky.""Tree of Heaven" is accordingly a translation of the name of Rumphius, and is more properly applied to the tall tropical species than to Ailanthus glandulosa, which does not attain any remarkable height.
Cultivation
The Ailanthus is easily propagated from seeds; but as trees bearing male flowers are objectionable on account of their odour, it is preferable to propagate the tree from root-cuttings obtained from female trees. In addition to the disagreeable odour of the male flowers, there may be some foundation for the belief prevalent in the United States that they cause stomachic disturbance and sore throat. The pollen from staminate flowers, doubtless, occasions a kind of hay fever.
The tree suckers freely from the root and to a great distance, as far as 100 feet from the parent stem. At Kew these suckers frequently appear between the tiles of the floor of one of the buildings near which an Ailanthus stands. At Oxford[2] a root-sucker sent up a flowering shoot, and, what is more remarkable, produced simple leaves, giving some support to the idea that plants with compound foliage originated from those with simple leaves. The tree has extraordinary vitality. Dr. Masters[2] gives an account of a tree which was cut down, the stump being left in the ground below the surface. Several years elapsed during which nothing was observed, but after about ten years suckers were seen coming up in a gravel path adjacent, and these, being traced, were found to issue from the old stump.
Ailanthus reproduces itself freely from stools, and the coppice shoots thus obtained are very vigorous.
It was long supposed that Ailanthus would succeed even on the worst soils, but this is an error. It only does well on permeable soils, which are fairly moist,
- ↑ In the herbarium of the British Museum there is a specimen labelled Hort. Busbridge, which is undoubtedly from the original tree. It was cut down in 1856 owing to the great amount of shade it produced near the house (Gard. Chron. 1857, p. 55). There is another specimen from Kew Gardens, 1779, showing that the tree was cultivated early there.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 Gard. Chron. 1887, ii. 364.
