by Dr. Tokutaro Ito some years ago, nearly equalling the 
dimensions named. 
The vegetation of the Island of Saghalien and Kamt- 
chatka is characterized in places by the extraordinary size of 
a number of herbaceous plants, which rise to a height of ten 
to fifteen feet. Prominent among them are species of Spirxa, 
Sanguisorba, Heracleum, Angelica, Urtica, and Festuca. 
Petasites japonicus has long been a cultivated plant in 
Japan, and the figures in the “ Honzo Zufu” cited above 
include varieties having leaves and bracts variously striped 
with white and red, and one in which the bracts of the 
inflorescence and young leaves are deep red, edged with 
white, and striped with green. 
Kew first obtained this plant, in 1899, from the Yoko- 
hama Nursery Company, in whose Catalogue for 1898 
there is a humorous pictorial representation of the use of 
the leaves as umbrellas, and it was there probably that it 
first received the varietal name of giganteus. This was 
superfluous, because Schmidt gives equally large dimen- 
sions for the wild plant in Saghalien. On the authority 
of this Catalogue “the big petioles are eaten as a vege- 
table, either boiled or preserved in salt or sugar, and its 
flower-buds are used fresh as a condiment and _ spice, 
owing to their agreeable flavour and slightly bitter taste.” 
For a further stock Kew is indebted to B. E. C. Chambers, 
Hsq., of Grayswood Hill, Haslemere, who presented it in 
1903. It is now flourishing in the Temperate House, and 
on the bank of the pond in the front, of the Museum; but 
it does not at present attain the gigantic dimensions it 
does in its home in Eastern Asia. 
Descr,—A perennial herb varying greatly in dimensions, 
but attaining a very large size under cultivation. Stemless 
except the inflorescences, which are functionally uni- 
sexual. Leaves appearing later than the flowers orbicular, _ 
reniform-cordate at the base, coarsely toothed and veined, 
at first clothed with a felt-like, white indumentum, but 
Soon becoming glabrous. Flower-stems appearing before 
the leaves, stout, clothed with oblong, ribbed bracts. 
Flowers white, densely corymbose.—W. Borrinc Hemstry. 
Figs. 1 and 2, flowers (female) from the circumference of the head ; 
3, flower (hermaphrodite) from the centre of the head; 4, a pappus-bristle; 
5, anthers ; 6, upper part of style and stigma :—all enlarged. 
