[Illustration: FIG. 78. HYBRID WALNUT. _J. nigra_ × _J. Californica_.] [Illustration: FIG. 79. HYBRID WALNUT, SHELL REMOVED. _J. nigra_ × _J. Californica_.] "The clean cut, bright green leaves make a remarkable showing, being all the way from two feet to a yard in length, and of graceful, drooping habit (Fig. 77). They are sweet-scented, too,--a delightful fragrance, resembling that of June apples. Another admirable feature of this hybrid walnut is its smooth, grayish bark, with white marblings not unlike the Eastern sugar maple. The wood is compact, with lustrous, satiny grain, and takes an elegant polish, which gives it unmistakable commercial value. Like the majority of hybrids, though blossoming freely it yields a scant crop of nuts, one or two annually on a single tree, and this only after twelve years of persistent barrenness. The seed, when planted, goes back to its parent distinctiveness,--one-half turning out to be English walnuts and the other half black walnuts,--the true hybrid being only reproduced by grafting on a thrifty young _Juglans Californica_. "Another handsome novelty in shade trees, is a hybrid from the _Juglans nigra_, or well-known Eastern black walnut, and _J. Californica_ (Figs. 78 and 79). It makes a charming ornamental tree, and bears, in its season, a prolific crop of unusually large nuts, which have little value except in the eyes of school children. Several of these hybrids are growing in Santa Rosa, and present an interesting study to the pomologist. [Illustration: FIG. 80. JUGLANS SIEBOLDIANA RACEME.] "A still more unique species of the walnut genus is the _Juglans Sieboldiana_, a Japanese walnut which grows abundantly in the mountainous districts of the island of Yesso, and also in the more southern divisions of the empire. Several of these remarkable trees are to be found in the Kew gardens, but only one specimen is said to be growing in America, and this has recently come into profuse bearing on the Burbank experimental farm, eight miles from Santa Rosa, California. According to good authority, this Japanese walnut not only attains its greatest perfection in this favored climate, but it thrives equally well in countries too cold for the common walnut, _J. regia_. In its wild state in Japan, the _Juglans Sieboldiana_ (whose curious raceme of nuts is shown in Fig. 80) makes a wide-spreading tree about fifty feet in hight, with pale, furrowed bark; nuts an inch and a half long, with a diameter one-third less, and a kernel having much the flavor of the common walnut. The tree bearing so thriftily on California soil, suggests its possible value as a marketable nut, while it already furnishes a remarkable addition to horticultural interests." [Illustration: FIG. 81. BLACK WALNUT IN HUSK.]