20 2 The Trees of Great Britain and Ireland 



THUJOPSIS DOLABRATA 



Thujopsis dolabrata, Siebold et Zuccarini, J^. Jap. ii. 34, tt. 119, 120 (1842); Franchet et Savatier, 



Enum. H. Jap. i. 469 (1875); Shirasawa, Icon. Essences Forest. Jap., text 27, t. xi. 18-34 



(1900). 

 Thuya dolabrata, Linnaeus, Suppl. PI, System, 420 (1781)5 Masters, Jour. Linn. Soc. {Bot.), xviii. 



486 (1881), and Gard. Chron. xviii. 556, fig. 95 (1882); Kent, in Veitch's Man. ConiJ. 236 



(1900). 



The species has been described in detail above. 



Two well-marked geographical forms occur, both confined to the main island 

 of Japan : 



1. Var. australis (var. nova). A small tree 40 to 50 feet in height, or a 

 shrub growing as underwood in the dense shade of forests. As a tree it has a 

 slender trunk, with drooping branches and a narrow pyramidal top. Branchlets 

 very flat and only slightly overlapping, the lateral leaves ending in acute points 

 bent inwards. Cones broadly ovoid, with scales thickened at the apex, which is 

 prolonged externally into a blunt triangular process. This is the form which is 

 known in cultivation in Europe, and described and figured in the works cited 

 above. 



2. Var. Hondai, Makino.^ A larger tree, attaining 100 feet in height, with a 

 stem of over 3 feet in diameter. The branch-systems are more densely ramified, 

 the branchlets being placed close together and overlapping one another by their 

 edges more than is the case in the preceding variety. The leaves also are smaller, 

 whiter underneath, and crowded more closely on the shoots ; those of the lateral 

 ranks being usually blunt and not curved inwards at the apex. The cones are 

 globular, with scales not thickened at the apex, which is devoid of the process so 

 conspicuous in the other form, or merely shows it as an obsolete transverse 

 minute mucro. The seeds appear to be more broadly winged, the wings being 

 more scarious in texture. 



This form has not yet been introduced. Elwes has brought home excellent 

 specimens of it in fruit from the Uchimappe Forest, near Aomori, in the extreme 

 north of Hondo. These differ in the characters given above from specimens of 

 the ordinary form obtained by him in the forest of Atera, Kisogawa, and Yumoto 

 (4000 to 5000 feet altitude) in Central Hondo. The smaller leaves, set more 

 closely on densely ramified branchlets in this variety, may be due to the influence 

 of dense shade. The difference in the cone is paralleled by what occurs in the 

 fruit of the different geographical forms of Cryptomera japonica. I am inclined to 

 think that var. Hondai is not a distinct species ; but as it is very different, from 

 the point of view of cultivators, it may conveniently bear the name Thujopsis 

 Hondai. 



* Tokyo Botanical Meclizine, 1901, xv. 104. 



