the tree fresh and green long after most trees have lost their foliage. The time of flowering is also very late, and this is a point of interest, although the flowers are not conspicuous or remarkable for size or colour. It is a very hardy tree in England,[1] and seems to be free from all attacks of fungi and insects. Its roots do not sucker, which is a point in its favour when planted in towns or in gardens or parks. It has been freely used as a street tree in Italy, where its dense foliage is an advantage in the hot summers. It is remarkable how little the foliage is affected by the hottest and driest seasons, and on this account it might be tried in dry and hot situations. It thrives fairly well in all soils that are deep and not too compact, but it will only grow vigorously in deep rich soils, where seedlings will sometimes attain a height of 12 feet in four or five years.[2] It is propagated by seeds, which should be sown in spring.
Remarkable Trees
The trees in the Kew Gardens have been alluded to as regards their history. The one which occurs near the Pagoda, in 1903, was 68 feet high and 8 feet 3 inches in circumference. The old tree, with the branches held together by chains, now measures (1905) 50 feet high and 13 feet in girth at a foot from the ground, the narrowest part of the short bole, which branches immediately into three main limbs. A fourth limb, very large, was blown off some years ago. Not far off is a smaller tree about 6 feet in girth near the ground; it branches from the base, forming a wide-spreading low tree.
At Syon, two trees of considerable size are now living, each about 70 feet high; one measured in 1903 12½ feet in girth, the other 12 feet.[3]
The tree in the Oxford Botanic Garden was 65 feet high by 12 feet 3 inches in girth in 1903 when measured by Elwes.[4]
That in the old Botanic Garden at Cambridge is one of the finest trees in England, as it has a very symmetrical bole. It measured in 1904, 73 feet high by 11 feet in girth. It is figured in Plate 16.[5]
We are not acquainted with any large specimens of the Sophora now growing in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales, though Loudon mentions one at Tyninghame, Haddingtonshire, 42 feet high,[6] one at Castletown near Dublin 35 feet high, and one at Oriel Temple, Co. Louth, of the same height.
In France and Germany there are probably larger specimens than in this country. (A.H.)
- ↑ The Sophora has withstood, without injury, the severest frosts in Perthshire. See pamphlet by Col. H.M. Drummond Hay, The Comparative Hardihood of Hardwooded Plants, from Observations made at Seggieden, Perthshire (1882).
- ↑ Nicholson, in an excellent article on the Sophoras in Woods and Forests, July 30, 1884.
- ↑ One of these is mentioned by Loudon, ii. 565, as being the largest near London, and measured in 1838 57 feet high and about 9 feet in girth.
- ↑ This is said by Loudon (l.c.) to have been twenty years planted in 1844, though probably this is an error, as it was then 35 feet high.
- ↑ Loudon says there were two trees in the garden, both 50 feet high, which had flowered occasionally.
- ↑ There is a splendid Sophora in the grounds at Cobham Park, Kent, which I measured in 1905, and found to be 85 feet by 10 feet. There is also one in the Tilt Yard at Arundel Castle, 62 feet by 9 feet 6 inches.—(H.J.E.)
