THE TOKYO BOTANICAL GARDEN. 255 



nomenclature they have really done very close and careful work in 

 the description of species. Some of the publications of the 

 Botanical Institute are very handsomely printed and illustrated. 



Japanese botanists have an interesting flora with which to 

 work. The very moist climate permits the northward extension 

 of many southern forms. To the botanist Japan is a land of con- 

 trasts. At one glance he may see bamboos and camphor trees 

 and fields of rice, all reminding him of the tropics, while with a 

 turn of the head he may have brought to his mind his American 

 or European home with the sight of barley and wheat fields or 

 groups of pines and maples. Japan has been well characterized 

 as a " kingdom of magnolias, camelias and aralias." These genera 

 and their allies are well represented in the botanical garden. One 

 of the most striking features noted by the present writer on the 

 occasion of his first winter-dav visit to the garden was a larg-e bed 

 of Fatsia japonica. one of the Araliaceae, in full leaf. At the 

 same time a few of the CauicJia flowers, a little more hardv than 

 the rest, were open to view. The Magnolia buds also, though it 

 was early January, had swelled enough to show their cream- 

 colored petals. 



The people of Japan are fond of " gardens " and so the botanical 

 institute must needs have a Japanese garden for show purposes. 

 While the principal part of the botanical garden is given up to 

 beds of herbs and shrubs in European style — or rather lack of 

 style — there is this charming little plot of ground arranged with 

 the most exquisite native taste. Here are no geometric walks, 

 no ill arranged flower masses, no array of stifif sign-boards. In- 

 stead there are winding walks, stepping stones through glisten- 

 ing pools, rustic bridges, dwarfed trees of symmetrical form and 

 handsome dark-green shrubs trimmed in rounded masses. 



A true Japanese garden is something to delight the eye in its 

 daintiness and good taste. The foreign botanist enjoys this ex- 

 hibition of horticultural art so unknown to him, and he admires 

 the skill of the gardener who makes his trees and shrubs grow 

 just as he wants them to grow. He admires, too, the curious and 

 unfamiliar trees and shrubs which are there. Flowers there are 

 none. To most people a garden without flowers suggests Hamlet 



