In that very interesting compilation, “Hortus Collinsonianus,” the following memorandum occurs:  “The Eastern hornbeam was raised from seed sent me from Persia, procured by Dr. Mounsey, physician to the Czarina.  Received it August 2, 1751, and sowed it directly; next year (1752) the hornbeam came up, which was the original of all in England.  Mr. Gordon soon increased it, and so it came into the gardens of the curious.  At the same time, from the same source, were raised a new acacia, a quince, and a bermudiana, the former very different from any in our gardens.”  This memorandum was probably written from recollection long afterward, with an error in the dates, and the species was first entered in the catalogue as follows:  “Azad, arbor persica carpinus folio, Persian hornbeam, raised from seed, anno 1747; not in England before.”  It appears, however, from Rand’s “Index” that there was a plant of it in the Chelsea Garden in 1739.  The name duinensis was given by Scopoli, because of his having first found it wild at Duino.  As, however, Miller had previously described it under the name orientalis, that one is adopted in accordance with the rule of priority, by which must be decided all such questions in nomenclature.

[Footnote 2:  IDENTIFICATION.—­Carpinus orientalis.  Miller, “Gardener’s Dictionary,” ed. 6 1771; La Marck, Dict, i., 107; Watson, “Dendrologia Britannica,” ii., tab. 98; Reich.  Ic. fl.  Germ. et Helvet., xxii., fig, 1298; Tenore, “Flora Neapolitana,” v., 264; Loudon, Arb. et Fruticet.  Brit., iii., 2014, Encycl.  Trees and Shrubs, p. 918; Koch, “Dendrologie.” zweit, theil zweit, abtheil, p. 4.  C. duinensis, Scopoli, “Flora Carniolica,” 2 ed., ii., 243, tab. 60; Bertoloni, “Flora Italica,” x., 233; Alph.  De Candolle in Prodr., xvi. (ii.), 126.]

The American Hornbeam [3] also known under the names of blue beech, water beech, and iron wood, although a less tree than our native species, which it resembles a good deal in size of foliage and general aspect, is nevertheless a most desirable one for the park or pleasure ground, on account of the gorgeous tint assumed by the decaying leaves in autumn.  Emerson, in his “Trees and Shrubs of Massachusetts,” pays a just tribute to this tree from a decorative standpoint.  He says:  “The crimson, scarlet, and orange of its autumnal colors, mingling into a rich purplish red, as seen at a distance, make it rank in splendor almost with the tupelo and the scarlet oak.  It is easily cultivated, and should have a corner in every collection of trees.”  It has pointed, ovate oblong, sharply double serrate, nearly smooth leaves.  The acute bractlets are three-lobed, halberd-shaped, sparingly cut-toothed on one side.  Professor C.S.  Sargent, in his catalogue of the “Forest Trees-of North America,” gives the distribution, etc., of the American hornbeam as follows:  “Northern Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, through the valley of St. Lawrence and Lower Ottawa Rivers, along the northern shores of Lake Huron to Northern Wisconsin and Minnesota; south to Florida and Eastern Texas.  Wood resembling that of ostrya (hop hornbeam).  At the north generally a shrub or small tree, but becoming, in the Southern Alleghany Mountains, a tree sometimes 50 feet in height, with a trunk 2 feet to 3 feet in diameter.”  It will almost grow in any soil or exposition in this country.