This species was introduced into England some time after 1800, the largest tree mentioned by Loudon in 1838 being one 25 feet high and fifteen years planted at Croome ; but it is long since dead. (A.H.)
I have raised numerous plants of Pterocarya from seed sent me from the Caucasus by the late Dr. Radde in 1903, some of which was distributed by the Royal Horticultural Society. The seedlings grow fast, attaining 2 feet or more in height at two years old, but do not ripen their wood well when young, and are extremely liable to be injured by frost if not protected in spring.’ The leaves appear about the same time as those of Liriodendron. The tree does not seem to dislike lime in the soil, and should be planted out when 3 or 4 feet high, in a situation where the ground is not liable to drought in summer, or near running water.
Remarkable Trees
This is one of the most ornamental hardwoods that we have; and is well worth planting in warm and sheltered positions in the south of England, where it thrives from Kent to Devonshire.
By far the largest and finest tree of this species known in England is at Melbury, Dorsetshire, the seat of the Earl of Ilchester. This magnificent tree (Plate 121) is growing on a sheltered bank below the house, on soil which contains lime, close to the finest specimen I know of Picea Morinda. It is no less than go feet high by 11 feet in girth, and has a straight clean bole about 15 feet long, spreading out into a symmetrical head of branches, and when I saw it in September 1906 had many catkins of fruit hanging on it.
Its spreading habit is shown by a fine tree at Claremont Park, near Esher, Surrey, which grows on deep sandy soil, and is a noble ornament of a lawn. The illustration of this tree (Plate 122) is from a photograph taken in 1903, when it measured about 50 feet in height, with a bole of only 4 feet high but no less than 18 feet in girth. It divides into eight large limbs, each of which is about 4 feet in girth, and the foliage spreads over an area of 30 yards in diameter. The tree is believed by Mr. Burrell, the gardener, to be about eighty years old, and seems to be decaying at the heart. The bark is very rough and deeply furrowed, and the leaves and flower-buds were just appearing, after a very mild winter, on 6th March. A self-sown seedling from it was about 2 feet high.’
Another fine tree is growing at Tortworth Court, from which I gathered ripe seed in October 1900, one of which grew in the following spring. The Earl of Ducie has raised several young trees from the same parent in other seasons. At Linton Park, Kent, there is a fine tree, which was about 50 feet high in September 1902, but not so large as the one at Claremont. Ripe fruiting specimens were sent from Devonshire by Sir John Walrond in 1888, which were figured by
1 The severe frost of 20th–22nd May 19095 seriously injured all my young trees, and it is evident that this tree should only be planted in situations where spring frosts are not severe.
2 Mr. Burrell found a seedling in the summer of 1899. See Garden, 1902, lxii. 234, where a figure and description of the tree are given. See also Garden, 1894, xlv. 404, fig., and Gard. Chron. 1894, xvi. 192. According to a note in the Kew Herbarium, the Claremont tree was, in 1887, 45 feet high by 13½ feet in girth.
