THE MAGNOLIA FAMILY. 



THE general character of the composition of the Japanese forests having been briefly 

 traced, I shall now say something of the most important Japanese trees ; and, as their botan- 

 ical characters are already pretty well understood and their economic properties are only of 

 secondary interest to the general reader, these remarks will relate principally to their quality 

 from a horticultural point of view. A comparison with allied eastern American species will 

 perhaps be useful ; it will, at any rate, show that, while Japan is extremely rich in the 

 number of its tree species, the claim that has been made, that the forests of eastern America 

 contain the noblest deciduous trees of all temperate regions, can, so far as Japan is con- 

 cerned, be substantiated, for, with few exceptions, the deciduous trees of eastern America 

 surpass their Asiatic relatives in size and beauty. 



In the Magnolia family Japan possesses five genera, while in the United States there are 

 only four. In Japan afborescent Magnoliaceae reach the most northern limit attained in any 

 country by these plants, and one of the most interesting features of the Japanese flora is the 

 presence in Yezo of two large trees of this tropical and semitropical family as far north, at least, 

 as the forty-fourth degree, while the representative of a third genus, Schizandra, is found still 

 farther north on the Manchurian mainland. In eastern America two species of Magnolia reach 

 nearly as high latitudes as this genus does in Japan, but in the United States Magnolia is 

 really southern, and has only succeeded in obtaining a precarious foothold at the north, while 

 in Yezo it is a most important element and a conspicuous feature of the forest vegetation. 



Of true Magnolias three species grow naturally in Japan ; two of these belong to the 

 section of the genus which produces its flowers before the leaves appear, and which has no 

 representative in the flora of America ; the third, Magnolia hypoleuca, bears some resemblance 

 to our Magnolia tripetala. This tree is seen at its best in the damp rich forests which cover 

 the low rolling hills of Yezo, where it sometimes rises to the height of a hundred feet and 

 forms trunks two feet in diameter ; on the other Japanese islands it is confined to the moun- 

 tain forests, and apparently does not descend below 2,000 feet above the sea ; and it is only 

 in Yezo and on the high mountains in the extreme northern part of the main island that 

 I saw it of large size. In central Japan it rarely appears more than twenty or thirty feet 

 high, although this can perhaps be accounted for by the fact that all trees in the accessible 

 parts of the Japanese forests are cut as soon as they are large enough to be used for timber. 

 Magnolia hypoleuca must be considered a northern species, requiring a cold winter climate 

 for its best development, and it probably will not thrive in regions where the ground is not 

 covered with snow during several months of every year. 



Magnolia hypoleuca is one of the largest and most beautiful of the deciduous-leaved 

 Magnolias ; in the early autumn, when the cones of fruit, which exceed those of any of our 

 species in size and are sometimes eight inches long, and brilliant scarlet in color, stand out on 



