INTRODUCTION. 7 



islands, Birches are more abundant than they are in our northern forests ; and the river banks 

 at the north, like those of northern Europe and Siberia, are lined with arborescent Willows 

 and Alders, which are rare in eastern America, where these genera are usually represented 

 by shrubs. 



The illustration on the opposite page (Plate ii.) gives some idea of the general appearance 

 of the great coniferous forests which cover the highlands of central Japan. In the fore- 

 ground, Lake Yumoto, famous for its thermal springs, nestles, 5,000 feet above the sea, among 

 the Nikko Mountains. The forests which rise from the shores of the lake are principally 

 composed of Hemlock (Tsuga diversifolia), among which are Birch (Betula Ermani), Abies 

 and Picea, Pterocarya, Cercidiphyllum, and the Mountain Ash. In the dense shade by the 

 shores of the lake grow dwarf forms of the Indian Azalea, Elliottia paniculata, our Canadian 

 Bunch Berry (Cornus Canadensis), great masses of Rhododendron Metternichii, which in 

 these forests replaces Rhododendron Catawbiense of the Appalachian Mountains, the dwarf 

 Ilex rugosa, Clethra canescens, here at the upper limits of its distribution, Panax horrida, and 

 the dwarf Blueberries which inhabit mountain-slopes in all northern countries, as well as the 

 ubiquitous Bamboos. 



The undergrowth which covers the ground beneath the forests in the two regions is so 

 unlike that it must at once attract the attention of the most careless observer. In all the 

 Appalachian region of North America this is composed of a great number of shrubs, chiefly 

 of various species of Vaccinium and Gaylusaccia, of Epigsea, wild Roses, Kalmias, dwarf 

 Pyrtis and Lycopodiums ; in Japan the forest-floor is covered, even high on the mountains, 

 and in the extreme north, with a continuous, almost impenetrable, mass of dwarf Bamboos of 

 several species, which makes traveling in the woods, except over long-beaten paths and up the 

 beds of streams, practically impossible. These Bamboos, which vary in height from three to 

 six feet in different parts of the country, make the forest-floor monotonous and uninteresting, 

 and prevent the growth of nearly all other under-slirubs, except the most vigorous species. 

 Shrubs, therefore, are mostly driven to the borders of roads and other open places, or to the 

 banks of streams and lakes, where they can obtain sufficient light to enable them to rise above 

 the Bamboos ; and it is the abundance of the Bamboo, no doubt, which has developed the 

 climbing habit of many Japanese plants, which are obliged to ascend the trees in search of 

 sun and light, for the Japanese forest is filled with climbing shrubs, which flourish with trop- 

 ical luxuriance. 



The wild Grape grows in the damp forests of Yezo with a vigor and to a size which the 

 American species do not often attain, even in the semitropical climate of the southern Missis- 

 sippi valley. Actinidia arguta climbs into the tops of the tallest trees, and nothing is so 

 un-American or so attracts the attention of the American traveler in Japan as the trunks of 

 trees clothed to the height of sixty or eighty feet with splendid masses of the climbing 

 Hydrangeas (H. petiolaris and Schizophragma), or with the lustrous evergreen foliage of the 

 climbing Evonymus. Wistaria is represented, it is true, in eastern America, but here it is not 

 common or one of the chief features of vegetation as it is in Japan ; and the Ivy, a southern 

 plant only in Japan, and nowhere very common, helps to remind the traveler that he is in the 

 Old and not in the New World. 



