THE HORNBEAM FAMILY. 65 



maturity are nearly an inch long and hairy on the margins. The leaves are ovate, long- 

 pointed, slightly and usually obliquely cordate at the base, coarsely and doubly serrate, thick 

 and firm, dark green on the upper surface, paler on the lower surface, three or four inches 

 long and about an inch and a half wide, with stout midribs and many straight prominent 

 veins slightly hairy below and deeply impressed above. The stipules are linear, acute, scari- 

 ous, an inch long, and covered with pale hairs. The male inflorescence is an inch long, with 

 stalked lanceolate-acute bracts half an inch in length, and more or less ciliate on the margins. 

 The female inflorescence is two thirds of an inch long, and is raised on a slender stem coated, 

 like the bracts which subtend the ovaries, with thick white tomentum ; the outer bracts are acute, 

 scarious, a quarter of an inch long, and early deciduous ; the inner bracts are oblique, coarsely 

 serrate toward the apex, conspicuously many-ribbed, and furnished at the base with a minute 

 ovate serrate lobe which covers the ovary. Before the fruit ripens these inner bracts enlarge 

 until they are two thirds of an inch long and one third of an inch broad, and are closely 

 imbricated into a cone-like catkin which resembles in shape, color, and texture that of our 

 American Hop Hornbeam ; it is, however, often two or two and a half inches long. The 

 nutlet is slightly flattened, with about ten straight prominent ridges extending from one end 

 to the other. 



Carpinus Carpinus is common on the Hakone and Nikko mountains between two and three 

 thousand feet elevation above the sea ; it apparently does not range very far north in Hondo 

 or reach the island of Yezo. This interesting and beautiful tree, which is remarkable among 

 Hornbeams in the character of the bark and in the female inflorescence, appears to be 

 perfectly hardy in New England. For a number of years it has inhabited the Arnold 

 Arboretum, and during the last two seasons has produced flowers and fruit here. In its 

 young state it makes a handsome, compact, pyramidal, bushy, and very distinct-looking tree. 



But the most beautiful of the Hornbeams of Japan, as it appears in the forests of Yezo, is 

 Carpinus cordata, which often attains the height of forty feet, with a stout trunk sometimes 

 eighteen inches in diameter, covered with dark deeply furrowed scaly 'bark. The stout 

 branchlets are orange-color, or light brown when they are three or four years old, and are 

 covered with large oblong pale lenticels. This species is remarkable in the size of its winter- 

 buds, which are fully grown by midsummer, and are sometimes nearly an inch in length, and 

 acute, and covered with light chestnut-brown papery scales. The leaves are thin, broadly 

 ovate, pointed, deeply cordate, doubly serrate, six or seven inches long, and three or four 

 inches broad ; they are light green on both surfaces, although rather lighter colored on the 

 lower, with conspicuous yellow midribs and veins slightly hairy below and impressed above. 

 The catkins of fruit are often five or six inches long and an inch and a half wide, with 

 broadly ovate, remotely serrate bracts ; their basal lobe is proportionately much larger than 

 that of the last species, and is sometimes a third of the length of the bract, to which it is 

 often united along nearly its entire length, while in Carpinus Carpinus the lobe is only 

 attached at the base. 



This is the only species of central Yezo, where it is one of the common forest-trees, 

 growing with Oaks, Magnolias, Ashes, Walnuts, Acanthopanax, Birches, etc. ; it also grows 

 in Hondo at high elevations, although it is here much less common than farther north. This 



