SKETCH OF THE CONIFERS OP JAPAK. -ill) 



-r r 



Now, all these notices are very apt to mislead. The natural 

 inference -which any one "would draw from them is that the ti'eo 

 had been introduced by Messrs. Staudish and Co., from Jezo or 

 Japan. Dr. Lindley says that it is "a magnificent evergreen 

 coniferous tree from Japan," and the subsequent notices repeat 

 the statement. No one therefore would suppose tliat it had 

 nothing to do with Japan> and, in point of fact, came from China, 

 which is never once mentioned in any of the accounts ; and yet, 

 on inquiry, this turns out to be the case. How^ Dr. Lindley 

 came to be misled as to its locality, it is now too late to inquire, 

 but misled he undoubtedly has been ; and trusting to Japan 

 being its native place has no doubt been a chief means of leading 

 him into the error of confounding the species with the Abies 

 Jezoensis of Siebold. The statement in the Flore des Serres 

 that the cone was copied from a coloured drawing by Fortune 

 first raised our doubts as to the true locality. Fortune, in 1850, 

 smelt far more of China than Japan. A reference to Mr. 

 Fortune at once put the matter right. He tells us that he was 

 the discoverer of the tree ; a.nd it was he who sent home the seeds 

 and cones to Messrs. Standish and Noble, from whom the young 

 plants found their way to Mr. Van Houtte, and thence into the 

 Flore des Serres. 



h 



u 



It was at Foo-chow-foo that Mr. Fortune found it. A single 



F 



tree, in the grounds of a famous temple named Koo-shan, there 

 struck his attention. It was an aged Fir, stretching out its 

 branches in a tabulated form, like a Cedar of Lebanon, and on 

 these were growing the magnificent beautiful purple cones, which 

 he figured, standing erect, and thickly grouped, like rows of 

 soldiers. It was the only tree of the kind which he saw, and 

 from it he obtained the seeds and specimens which he sent to 

 Messrs. Standishand Noble. From its being unique, and from its 

 position near a temple, it is not improbable that it may have 

 been introduced to Foo-chow-foo from some other country, though 

 from whence there was no sign. Those at home fixed upon Japan; 

 but whosoever did so, with unaccountable carelessness, omitted to 

 communicate to Dr. Lindley the actual place whence it came — an 

 omission of some importance, as, of course, the treatment and 

 care necessary for a plant from a warm latitude like Foo-chow-foo 

 is very different from what would be suitable to one from the 



cold regions of Jezo. 



Having disabused our minds of the notion that it came from 

 Jezo, we can with more impartiality consider its claims to be the 

 Ahics Jezocnsis of Siebold. By-and-by, when we come to it, 



