THE TERNSTRCEMIA, LINDEN, AND RUE FAMILIES. 19 



is Actinidia arguta ; little need be said of this handsome plant, as it is now common and well 

 established in our gardens, where it grows with great vigor and rapidity, and where it is one 

 of the best plants of its class. We have heard a good deal of the value of the fruit of this 

 plant, which is depressed-globular, an inch across, and greenish yellow ; it is eaten in Japan, 

 but the flavor is insipid, and its merits appear to have been exaggerated. It was offered for 

 sale in the streets of Hakodate in great quantities, but, of course, green and hard, as the 

 Japanese use all their fruit before it ripens. 



Actinidia polygama, although it inhabits Manchuria and Saghalin, and is common in the 

 forests of Hokkaido, is more abundant in those which cover the mountains of central Japan ; 

 it is a slenderer plant than Actinidia arguta, with elliptical acute slightly serrate long-stalked 

 leaves. The fruit is an inch and a half long, half an inch broad in the middle, and narrowed 

 at both ends ; it is canary-yellow, rather translucent, soft and juicy, with an extremely 

 disagreeable flavor. Actinidia polygama does not, like Actinidia arguta, climb into the tops 

 of tall trees ; its Aveaker stems tumble about and form great tangles, sometimes twenty feet or 

 more across, and fifteen or twenty feet high. The most remarkable thing about this plant 

 is that in summer the leaves toward the ends of the branches become pale yellow, either over 

 their entire surface or only above the middle, not because they are drying up or ripening, but 

 apparently from an insufficient supply of chlorophyll. The effect that the plants produce at 

 this time is curious and interesting, and when seen from a distance growing on a mountain- 

 side or on the banks of a stream, they appear like huge bushes covered with pale yellow 

 flowers. This fine plant is still little known in cultivation, but if it flourishes in New England 

 like Actinidia arguta it will form a most valuable addition to our shrubberies. 



Actinidia Kolomikta, which is found also in Manchuria and northern China, is much less 

 common in Japan than the other species. I saw it only on the rocky cliffs of a hill near 

 Sapporo, where it was growing with Rhododendrons and Menziesia, and where it was a deli- 

 cate, slender vine, with steins only a few feet in length. Unfortunately, there were no seeds 

 to be obtained, and I am doubtful if this species has ever been introduced into our gardens, 

 although the name often appears in nurserymen's catalogues. 



In the forests of Japan are found two Lindens. They are both extremely common in 

 Yezo, but in the other islands are rare, and confined to mountain-slopes of considerable 

 elevation. The larger of the two, Tilia Miqueliana (see Plate viii.), is a handsome tree, often 

 growing in central Yezo to the height of one hundred feet, and forming a trunk four or five 

 feet in diameter. As it is only seen crowded among other trees in the forest, the branches are 

 short, and the head is oblong and rather narrow. The bark, like that of all the Lindens, is 

 broken by longitudinal furrows, and is light brown or dark gray. The young branchlets are 

 unusually stout for a Linden-tree, and in their first season are covered, as are the large ovate- 

 obtuse winter-buds, with hoary tomentum. The leaves are deltoid or deltoid-obovate, abruptly 

 contracted at the apex into broad points, obliquely truncate or subcordate at the base, and 

 coarsely and sharply serrate with incurved callous teeth ; they are four to six inches long, 

 three or four inches broad, rather light green, and more or less puberulous on the upper 

 surface, and pale and tomentose on the lower, especially on the prominent midribs and primary 

 veins, in their axils, and on the stout petioles, which are two or three inches in length. The 



