of a yellowish groy-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 of the 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 in 

 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 in 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 amd japojiica, two charming species, of 



