THE WALNUTS, BIRCHES, ALDERS, AND HORNBEAMS. 



IN nut-bearing trees the forests of Japan are poor in comparison with those of eastern 

 North, America. The Hickory, if it ever existed in the ante-glacial forests of Asia, has 

 entirely disappeared from them, and the Walnut family now appears in Japan in three 

 genera Juglans, Pterocarya, and Platycarya ; the last two belong exclusively to the Old 

 World. In Japan, Juglans is represented by Juglans Sieboldiana, a common forest-tree in 

 Yezo and in the mountain regions of the other islands. As a timber-tree it is much less 

 important than either of the two eastern American Walnuts, as specimens more than fifty 

 feet high are uncommon ; it is a wide-branched tree, resembling our Butternut in habit and 

 in the color of its pale furrowed bark, as it does in the pubescent covering of the youno- 

 branches, the lower surface of the leaves, and the fruit. The nuts are arranged in long racemes, 

 and resemble those of the Asiatic, or, as it is familiarly called in commerce, the English Wal- 

 nut (Juglans regia), rather than our American walnuts, which are deeply sculptured into 

 narrow ridges, while the surface of the Japanese nut is smooth, or sometimes more or less 

 pitted ; it is pointed at the apex with thickened wing-like sutures, and is often an inch and a 

 half long and about an inch broad, although it varies considerably both in size and shape ; in 

 flavor the kernel resembles that of the English walnut. The walnut is evidently an important 

 article of food in Japan, as the nuts are exposed for sale in great quantities in the markets of 

 all the northern towns. Juglans Sieboldiana is perfectly hardy here in New England, where 

 it ripens its fruit ; it is not worth growing, however, as an ornamental tree, as the Black 

 Walnut surpasses it in size and beauty. It will produce fruit, however, in regions of greater 

 winter cold than the English Walnut can support, and as a fruit-tree it may find a place in 

 northern orchards, although the abundance and cheapness of English walnuts seem to forbid 

 its cultivation as a source of profit. 



I am unable to throw any light upon the curious Juglans cordiformis of Maximowicz, dis- 

 tinguished by its flattened, long-pointed, and more or less heart-shaped nuts. The tree which 

 produces these peculiar nuts is not recognized by the Japanese botanists, who consider them 

 extreme varieties of their common walnut. I looked in vain for nuts of this form in the 

 markets of Hakodate, where they were first seen by the Kussian naval officer Albrecht ; after- 

 ward, however, I found them offered for sale by the Nurserymen's Association of Yokohama, 

 and was told that they were collected on the sides of Fuji-san. A plant raised from one of 

 these heart-shaped nuts has been growing for a number of years in the Arnold Arboretum, 

 and has produced fruit. In habit and in foliage it is not distinguishable from plants of the 

 same age of Juglans Sieboldiana. Juglans regia, although included in most works on the 

 flora of Japan, is not a native of the empire ; it is occasionally cultivated in the neighborhood 

 of temples and as a fruit-tree, but we saw no evidence of its being anywhere indigenous, and 

 it is probable that it was introduced from northern China, where one form of this tree appar- 

 ently grows naturally. 



