hl 
dv. Mes 
5 
of a yellowish grey-colour, and is worked up into utensils, 
agricultural instruments, gun-stocks, &c. The tree bears 
clipping very well, on which account it is very commonly 
found round places of worship, and in gardens, where it is cut 
into the form of pyramids, globes, &c. In pleasure-gardens 
large plantations of it are sometimes found, in which the old 
French style of gardening is imitated. The trunk is usually 
30 or 40 feet high, and from 10 to 18 inches in diameter. 
"The leaves are alternate, stalked, oval, or oblong, acuminate, 
entire or slightly serrated, evergreen, coriaceous, smooth and 
green above, brownish beneath. 'The long slender catkins of 
the male and female flowers are collected into panicles at the 
summit ofthe branches. The fruits grow 15 or 20 together, 
in short straight spikes, and do not ripen till the autumn of 
the second year, that is to say, eighteen months after the ap- 
pearance of the flowers ; the acorns are completely covered 1n 
the cup, which eventually bursts irregularly into two or three 
lobes. They germinate immediately after being sown, and 
soon come up; nevertheless the growers prefer and carefully 
seek for the young suckers which spring of themselves in plan- 
tations, and they use them as stocks on which they graft what 
is considered the best variety. I succeeded in 1830 in con- 
veying this and several other oaks to Europe. The Japanese 
manage to preserve a large sort of chesnut, as far as midsum- 
mer, by enveloping it m a kind of ferruginous loam; and 
this gave me the idea of sending this kind of oak to Holland, 
in cases filled with such earth, well pressed down. They 
reached their destination in excellent order, as did seeds of 
the Tea plant, sent in the same way to Batavia in 1825-6, 
which were the origin of thousands of plants, now forming 
vast plantations in Java. In the same way Mr. Burger has 
been able to enrich the Botanical Gardens of Leyden with 
the young oaks and Camellias of Japan. These Japan oaks. 
namely, Q. cuspidata, glabra, and serrata, sustained in the 
open ground, the winter of 1833-4 without injury.” 
In this style have now been illustrated forty plants, among 
which are the following :— 
The Illicium religiosum, or Skimi of the Japanese, with 
which this people ornament their temples. * 
Forsythia suspensa, a beautiful yellow-flowered deciduous 
shrub, related to the Lilac. 
Anemone cernua and japonica, two charming species, of 
