Volume 9 Number ii 



The Plant World 



a Jftap^inc pf popular ^otanp 

 NOVEMBER, 1906 



THE TOKYO BOTANICAL GARDEN 



By Professor Francis Ramaley, 

 University of Colorado. 



In America, where botanical gardens are few, where one must 

 often travel a thousand miles or more to find one, we do not 

 appreciate how much they mean for the advancement of botanical 

 knowledge. Our universities might well copy from Europe the 

 plan of having such gardens, even if they can not be large. A 

 botanical garden not only serves as a place of instruction where 

 young men may study, but it may also become a place of historic 

 interest. 



The botanical garden at Tokyo is one which every botanist 

 should be glad to visit. In it may be seen plants very different 

 from those cultivated in Europe and America — the native plants 

 of Japan and the far East, with, of course, a sprinkling of Euro- 

 pean and American species. Whoever sees the great Ginkgo* 

 tree, now historic through the work of Hirase, carries with him 

 a picture long to be remembered. 



This large tree is about two hundred years old and is in its 

 prime. Ginkgo trees are much planted all through Japan, espe- 

 cially in large parks and in the vicinity of temples. The trees 



* Material from this tree was used by Hirase in his researches on 

 fertilization in this species. Through his work the botanical world first 

 learned of motile spermatozoids in gymnosperms. Later Ikeno found 

 similar structures in Cycas, and, in our country, Webber's studies brougnt 

 the knowledge of fertilization in Zaiiiia. 



