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34 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland
and for this reason it is successfully used to cover railway and road embankments
in France. It will not grow well on compact clay or on chalky or absolutely poor
soils. In England it has only been planted as an ornamental tree, and it is very
suitable for planting in towns, as it is not injured by smoke and is free from insect
attacks and fungous diseases. Though it suckers freely, this is no objection in streets,
where the pavements or wheel traffic prevents them from making an appearance.
The young shoots are often killed by frost, but this only serves to keep the tree
within bounds without the use of the pruning knife. The Ailanthus only makes
one shoot annually, late in the spring, which continues to grow till October or
November, and this is the reason why it is spring tender, as the tips of the shoots
do not become properly lignified. The tree, however, bears the greatest cold in
winter, and was not injured by the severe frost of 1879.
The tree produces flowers in England when it is about 40 feet high ; and it
fruits pretty frequently, but the seeds are often infertile.
When the Ailanthus is cut back annually, it grows rapidly and produces foliage
of enormous size, suitable for the so-called tropical garden. Leaves of plants so
treated have measured as much as 4 feet long and 15 inches wide.
The Ailanthus succeeds in a great variety of climates, and is planted in regions
so diverse as Northern India, the United States, France, Germany, and Italy.
In France it has not been successful as a forest tree, as it is not a social species,
and is speedily dominated by native trees, if it survives the seedling stage, when it
is sensitive to spring frosts. In warmer climates it easily regenerates by seed, and
in consequence has become naturalised in many parts of Europe (as on the arid
slopes of Mount Vesuvius, where it stands very well the drought), and in the United
States, 1 where it often runs wild in old fields. American writers praise the tree for
the value of its wood and the rapidity of its growth, as it is said to make timber
faster than any of the native trees that are used for firewood.
The wood is yellowish or yellowish green, and is not clearly distinguishable into
well-marked heart and sap woods, though in old trees the centre of the stem becomes
deeper in colour. The wood has a specific gravity of 0.6, and is easily worked,
taking a good polish. It rives easily. It is used by wheelwrights as a substitute for
elm and ash ; but is inferior to these, as it does not possess their elasticity or
their capability of resistance to fracture. It is said, however, to bear well
alternations of dry and wet.
Mr. J. A. Weale of Liverpool, who has paid great attention to the study of
timbers, and knows more about them than any one in the trade in this country,
writes to us that this wood resembles that of the ash so closely in structure, that the
only real difference between the two is in the large cellular compound pores which
are formed in the Ailanthus, as shown in the microscopical section which he enclosed.
Elwes is assured by Prof. C. S. Sargent that it makes nice furniture, and he has a
specimen from a large tree which was cut down in the Palace Gardens at Wells,
Somerset, of which the timber was bought by Mr. Halliday, a cabinetmaker,
for £8.
1 Also in Southern Ontario. See Britton and Brown, loc. eft.
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Ailanthus
REMARKABLE TREES
The largest Ailanthus was that at Syon, which was 70 feet high in Loudon's
time, and nearly 100 feet in 1880.' It is now dead.
At Kew a vigorous tree is growing in the garden behind the Palace, which
measures 73 feet high and 8 feet in girth. Not far off a number of Ailanthus trees of
varying size, but none very large, occurs in a group, and they seem to be root-suckers ;
probably one of the original trees was planted in this spot in the eighteenth century.
At Milton Rectory, Steventon, Berks, there are two trees of equal height (78
feet), one girthing 9 feet i inch, and the other 8 feet 6 inches. Both these trees
bloom freely every year, producing fruit of a bright red colour on the south side
of the trees ; and the seeds, as they fall in the garden near hand, produce seedlings
which are very vigorous. 2
At the Mote, Maidstone, there are two large trees, one of which is 70 feet high
and 8 feet in circumference.
At Linton Park, Maidstone, is a tree growing in a shrubbery which was nearly
80 feet high by 6 feet 6 inches in 1902.
At Broom House, Fulham, the residence of Miss Sulivan, is a tree 80 feet high,
with a bole 9 feet long and 10 feet in girth, which divides into two main stems
(Plate 13).
At Fakenham, Norfolk, Sir Hugh Beevor has measured a tree 75 feet by
8 feet ii inches.
At Barton, Bury St. Edmunds, an Ailanthus which was planted in 1826 3
measured in 1904 55 feet high, with a girth of stem of 5 feet 2 inches. Bunbury
says that it is perfectly hardy at Barton, and did not suffer in the least from the
severe winter of 1860. It was 3^ feet girth at 3 feet from the ground in 1862. It
flowered abundantly in August of 1861, the greater part of the flowers being herma
phrodite, and a considerable number of fruits were formed, but all dropped off before
coming to maturity. It fruited abundantly in 1868. Bunbury says, generally there
is only one samara to each flower, but not unfrequently two or three ; he never saw
more than three.
At Belton Park, the seat of Earl Brownlow, is a fine specimen of the
tree, for a photograph of which (Plate 14) we are indebted to Miss F. Woolward,
who gives its height as 83 feet, and its girth as 6 feet. This seems to be the tallest
tree recorded in England.
At Burwood House, Cobham, Surrey, the seat of Lady Ellesmere, Colonel H.
Thynne has measured an Ailanthus 71 feet high by 10 feet 10 inches girth, which,
though partly fallen down and supported by a prop, is still a fine tree.
The tree seems to require a climate which is at once both warmer and drier in
summer than that of the northern and western counties of England, and we do not
know of any trees of any great size now existing in Scotland, Ireland, or Wales,
though Loudon states that there was one at Dunrobin Castle, Sutherlandshire, 43
feet high. (A. H.)
1 Garden, 1 880, xviii. 629.
a The Rev. H. Hamilton Jackson kindly sent us this information in a letter dated Dec. 10, 1903.
3 Bunbury, Arboretum Notes, 88.
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