The Trees of Great Britain & Ireland/Volume 2/Cedrela
CEDRELA
- Cedrela, Linnæus, Gen. Pl. 109 (1764); Bentham et Hooker, Gen. Pl. i. 339 (1862).
- Toona, Roemer, Synops. i. 131 (1846).
Trees, belonging to the order Meliaceæ, with unequally pinnate leaves, without stipules, and composed of numerous opposite or sub-opposite stalked leaflets.
Flowers in panicles, perfect, regular Calyx short, four- to five-cleft. Petals, four to five, nearly erect, imbricated, free. Stamens, four to six, free, inserted at the top of a four- to six-lobed hypogynous disc; filaments subulate, anthers versatile. Ovary sessile on the disc, five-celled, each cell containing in two series eight to twelve pendulous ovules. Fruit, a coriaceous or woody capsule, composed externally of five valves, and almost filled up internally by a central column, between which and the valves are five thin cells, containing the seeds, which are numerous, compressed, and with one or two wings.
The genus is divided into two sections:—
I. Eu-Cedrela.—Seed with a single wing on its lower side. Nine species in tropical America.
II. Toona.—Seed with either two wings, one at each end, or with a single wing above. Eight species in India, Indo-China, China, and Australia, all in tropical regions except Cedrela sinensis.
CEDRELA SINENSIS
- Cedrela sinensis, A. Jussieu, Mém. Mus. Par. xix. 255, 294 (1830): Rev. Hort. 1891, p. 573, figs. 150, 151, 152; Hemsley, Journ. Linn. Soc. (Bot.) xxiii. 114 (1886).
- Toona sinensis, Roemer, Synops. i. 138, 139 (1846); Diels, Flora von Central China, 425 (1901).
- Ailanthus flavescens, Carrière, Rev. Hort. 1865, p. 366.
A tree of moderate size, attaining in China a height of 60 to 70 feet. Bark scaling off in narrow longitudinal strips, 1 to 2 inches in width, and leaving exposed in parts the reddish inner bark below. Young shoots covered with minute pubescence. Leaves (Plate 125, fig. 7), large, 1 to 2 feet in length. Leaflets, eleven to nineteen, about 4 inches long, on pubescent stalklets (nearly ¼ inch long), opposite or sub-opposite, divided into two unequal parts by the midrib, the upper part larger and rounded at the base, the other part usually cuneate at the base; apex caudate-acuminate; margin repand, minutely ciliate, distantly and minutely serrate or with occasional short teeth; nerves, fifteen to eighteen pairs, usually dividing and forming loops close to the margin; upper surface dark green, glabrous; lower surface pale green, glabrescent.
Flowers fragrant, in pubescent terminal panicles, which are a foot or more in length; pedicels short. Calyx with five short, rounded, ciliate lobes. Petals five, white, oblong, sub-cordate at the base, converging at the apex. Stamens five, alternating with five staminodes. Fruit about. an inch long; valves, opening longitudinally from above downwards. Seed with an oblong wing attached to its upper side, the wing two to three times as long as the body of the seed.
In summer the large pinnate leaves give the tree much the appearance of Ailanthus; but the bark is different, and the leaflets of Cedrela are devoid of the glandular teeth near the base, which are so characteristic of Ailanthus. In winter the following characters are available (Plate 126, fig. 2):—
Twigs stout, brown, minutely pubescent; lenticels small, scattered; pith white, circular in section. Leaf-scars large, alternate, slightly raised, obcordate or oval, with five bundle-dots. Terminal bud, much larger than the others, broadly conical, of four to six triangular scales, which are swollen externally and hollowed internally, brown, shining, with acuminate pubescent tips. Lateral buds minute, solitary, inserted immediately above the leaf-scars, hemispherical, showing three to five shining brown scales.
Lubbock,[1] who gives a detailed account of the structure and development of the buds, the scales of which are modified leaves, states that the terminal bud usually dies in winter, but sometimes lives, and then is always later in developing in spring than the lateral buds.
Cedrela sinensis is a native of northern and western China. It is very common in the neighbourhood of Peking, and was found in Kansuh, beyond the Great Wall, by Piasetski. According to von Rosthorn and Wilson, it is wild in the forests of the province of Szechuan. It is commonly cultivated in central China, where it never attains a great size, mainly because the Chinese spoil its growth by lopping off in spring the young shoots, which are much esteemed as food. These are eaten after being chopped and fried in oil, The tree is known to the Chinese as the hsiangch'un.[2] The timber is good, reddish in colour, and often used in making furniture.
The tree was first made known to Europeans by Pére d'Incarville, who sent dried specimens from Peking to Paris in 1743. In China it has been well known from classical times, and references to it Occur in the earliest Chinese literature.
Cedrela sinensis was introduced in 1862 by Simon, who sent a living plant from Peking to the Museum at Paris, which was described by Carrière in 1865 as Ailanthus flavescens. On the tree flowering in 1875 it was recognised to be Cedrela sinensis. This tree, which was planted in the nursery attached to the garden of the Museum, had attained in 1891 a height of 40 feet; and, when Elwes saw it in 1905, it was very little taller, and about 4 feet in girth, Many trees have been raised in the vicinity of Paris, both by seed and by rootand 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,[3] 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[4] 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.)