and it appears to be perfectly hardy in the north of France, having sustained without injury the severe winter of 1879–1880. Its large fragrant foliage renders it perhaps more suitable than the Ailanthus for planting in towns. It is said by Nicholson to be now largely used in Holland for that purpose.
The tree is rather rare in England, and we have seen no specimens remarkable for size. There is a tree in Kew Gardens which measured in November 1905 33 feet by 2 feet 4 inches. This is probably of the same age as an Ailanthus of equal height growing beside it. A tree much about the same size is growing and thriving in Messrs. Veitch’s Nursery at Coombe Wood. Mr. Cassels informs me that young trees of Cedrela are planted in some of the London County Council parks, as Meath Gardens and Bethnal Green.
Cedrela sinensis is also cultivated in the United States,’ where a tree flowered at Meehan’s nurseries, Germanstown, in 1895. Another only eight years old had attained in the same year 20 feet in height in western Virginia. Professor Sargent thinks it might be used as a street tree in New England, though introduced plants have proved rather tender in that climate. It has frequently flowered in France, but has never produced fruit there. There is no record of its having flowered as yet in England,
Mouillefert ? speaks of this tree as one which, in his opinion, has a great future in Europe on account of the high quality of its wood, which he compares to that of mahogany and that of the so-called cedar of the West Indies (Cedrela odorata). He says that the tree grows fast from seed, attaining 5 feet in the third year, and adds that on calcareous soil of middling quality at Grignon a tree about twenty-five years old measured 10 metres high. (A.H.)
1 Garden and Forest, 1896, pp. 260, 279.
2 Principales Essences Forestières, 471, 472 (1903).
