colour, and other qualities of the fruit, is very great; but a detailed description of these does not come within the scope of our work. The most remarkable is the huskless walnut[1] of North China, which is cultivated in the mountains to the northwest of Peking. In this curious form the husk is almost wanting, being very thin and irregular. In var. racemosa the fruits are numerous, fifteen to twenty-four, and are set close together on the peduncle. In var. maxima, Loudon (var. macrocarpa), the fruits are very large. The nuts are elongated and very narrow in var. elongata (var. Bartheriana[2]); very sharp-pointed at both ends in var. rostrata; and have very thin shells in var. tenera,[3] Loudon (var. fragilis). The kernel of the nut is bright red in var. rubra (var. rubrocarpa).[4]
Hybrids
I. Juglans regia x nigra. Two forms of this are well known in cultivation; they differ mainly in the character of the fruit.
1. Juglans Vilmoriniana, Carrière, Rev. Hort. 1863, p. 30. Young shoots glabrous. Leaf-scars obcordate, three-lobed, deeply notched above. Leaflets eleven to thirteen, ovate-lanceolate, sub-sessile, apex acuminate, base rounded or tapering; serrations fine and shallow, directed forwards; lower surface green and glabrous, except for conspicuous tufts of pubescence in the axils of the main veins. Rachis glabrous in the upper leaves of the shoot, pubescent towards its base in the lower leaves. Fruit with the thick husk of J. nigra. Nut smooth, globose, thicker shelled and more deeply furrowed than that of the common walnut.
In Garden and Forest, iv. 51 (1891), M.M. de Vilmorin gives particulars of the original tree in his garden at Verrières les Buisson, near Paris, and an excellent illustration of it in winter. He says that it was planted about 86 years previously as a young seedling by his grandfather as a memorial of the birth of his eldest son. Nothing certain is known of its origin, though it was supposed by Dr. Engelmann to be a hybrid, between the European and the black walnut. The characters of the bark, branchlets, and buds are intermediate; the leaves resemble those of J. regia more than those of J. nigra. The fruit, which is not produced every year, and never in quantity, is figured, and resembles most that of the black walnut. Of the few seedlings which have been raised from it one is growing beautifully in the Arboretum at Segrez, and produces fertile nuts. All the seedlings have grown well when planted in deep sandy soil mixed with clay. The tree at Verrières was seen by Elwes in 1905, and measured 95 feet high by 10 feet in girth, with a bole about 16 feet long, The habit of the tree was considered by him to resemble the black walnut rather than the common species.
There are young trees of J. Vilmoriniana growing at Kew, and one has been recently sent to Colesborne by M. de Vilmorin.
2. Juglans pyriformis, Carrière, loc. cit. 28, figs. 4 to 9. Garden, L. 478, fig. (1896).
- ↑ See Hance, in Journ. Bot. 1876, p. 50.
- ↑ Figured in Garden, L. 478 (1896); and Rev. Hort. 1859, p. 147, and 1861, p. 427.
- ↑ The thin-shelled walnut is mentioned in Parkinson, Theatrum Botanicum, 1413 (1640).
- ↑ See Gard. Chron. xxiii. 346 (1898). This variety is figured in Wien. Illust. Gart. Zeitung, 1898, p. 165.
