MR GORDON ON THE CKYPTOMERIA JAPONICA. 59 



more technical description, with an uncoloured plate, in the 

 18th volume of the Transactions of tlie Linnaean Society, under 

 the name of Cryptomeria Japonica. His account was drawn up 

 from the original specimen found in that portion of tlie Society's 

 Herbarium wliich formerly belonged to their late President, Sir 

 J. E. Smitli, and which he obtained from the younger Linnaeus, 

 who had it from his friend and successor Tlumberg, afTer his re- 

 turn from Japan. 



Mr. Loudon, in his large edition of the Arboretum and Fruti- 

 cetum Britannicum, merely mentions the tree under the old 

 name, at the end of Cupressineae, upon the autliority of Thunberg, 

 and in the last or abridged edition of the Arboretum Britannicum 

 omits the name altogether as being very doubtful. No certain 

 account regarding it appears to have been again given, from the 

 lime of Thunberg, until the year 1844, when Dr. Siebold, in his 

 beautiful Flora Japonica, gave a coloured plate and a detailed 

 account of it, from which 1 have made the following extracts. 

 He says " that this majestic tree perfectly well deserves the name 

 of Cedar, its name in Japan ; that it grows from 60 to 100 feet 

 in height, and 4 to 5 feet in diameter, with a pyramidal shaped 

 head, and rather erect or horizontal branches ; that it occurs in 

 great abundance on the three great Isles of Japan, and most pro- 

 bably on the smaller ones ; that a tenth part of the forests which 

 cover the skirts of the mountains between 500 and 1200 feet 

 of elevation, is composed of this Japan cedar." 



Still nothing was known of the living plants in England, or 

 perhaps in Europe, until Mr. Fortune succeeded in obtaining 

 seeds at Shanghai, in the north of China, for the Society. 

 They reached the Garden in a living state, about the end of 

 May, 1844, and from these the first plants were raised. Since 

 that time an abundant supply has been received by the Society 

 from the same source. 



Cryptomeria Japonica is found plentifully about Shanghai, 

 where it no doubt has been introduced from Japan ; for naval 

 officers who have been on that station assure us that it is 

 very plentiful in the form of avenues and in groves in the 

 neighbourhood of Shanghai, and in the other northern parts of 

 China, and that it furnishes the principal shelter for the nu- 

 merous birds during the extreme cold and bleak winds in winter, 

 when the thermometer sometimes falls as low as within 5 degrees 

 of zero. There can be little doubt therefore that it will prove 

 quite hardy in England. 



Some idea may be formed of this beautiful tree by imagining 

 such stately objects as the Australian Araucarias, particularly 

 Cunninghami, with a less aspiring and denser habit, and 

 living in the open air in winter. Indeed the young plants 



