One of the most interesting botanical facts is the close relationship of the Flora of the Eastern United States with that of Asia, a fact first brought prominently to notice by Dr. Asa Gray, and which receives new strength from botanical discoveries from year to year. A Kentucky coffee allied to one in America is now among the most recent of these. The convenient name Kentucky coffee, is widely applied, though the tree is not by any means confined to Kentucky. It has become a mere name without any of its original geographical meaning - and in this light perhaps Chinese Kentucky coffee will do as well as any other name. This is what the Gardener's Chronicle says of it:

"In the last number of Hooker's /cones Plan-tarum are figures and descriptions of some remarkable new plants from various parts of the world, among them a few of more than passing interest. First, there is a species of Gymnocladus from China - G. Chinensis, Baillon. This is the second species of the genus, and it is quite distinct from G. Canadensis, which is cultivated, though not very commonly, in this country. As Professor Oliver remarks, Gymnocladus is the second arboreous genus recently discovered in China, previously regarded as homotypic, and peculiar to Eastern North America; the other being Lirioden-dron, collected in Klukiang, by Dr. Shearer and Mr. Maries. The Chinese Gymnocladus differs from the American in the more numerous and much narrower leaflets, which are not acuminate, and in the thick but slightly compressed pod. The seeds are almost spherical, and about three quarters of an inch in diameter. The pod is three to four inches long, and hard and horny in the dried state, but capable of swelling up greatly in water. Mr. F. S. A. Bourne, of Her Majesty's Consular service, who sent specimens of it to Kew from Fokien, states that the fruit is used for washing purposes.

The outer shell is steeped for two days in water, and the liquid resulting is used as soft soap, or it can be dried into hard soap. Whether the seeds have the same saponaceous property we do not know, but it would seem that they have' some economic application, as they are figured in the late Mr. Hanbury's " Notes on Chinese Materia Medica" (Science Papers, p. 238, fig. 5). Then only the seeds were known. Mr. Maries collected flowering specimens of the Gymnocladus Chinensis at Kiukiang, and he may have collected seeds also. Possibly, too, Messrs. Veitch have living plants of it at the present time. We should think the tree would be hardy in this country, though our summers are probably not hot enough for it to produce fruit."