THE TEENSTRCEMIA, LINDEN, AND RUE FAMILIES. 21 



1886 into the Arnold Arboretum, and has so far proved hardy. It is, however, scarcely 

 distinct enough from the European plant to make its cultivation as an ornamental tree particu- 

 larly desirable. 



Elseocarpus, a genus of the Linden family distributed with many species through tropical 

 Asia, Australia, and the Pacific islands, is represented in Japan by two fine trees, found only 

 in the extreme southern part of the empire. Of these I saw only Elseocarpus photinieefolia, a 

 noble tree, planted in the gardens of a temple in the seashore town of Atami, where there are 

 the largest Camphor-trees in Japan and good specimens of a number of other southern trees. 



The Rue family has a number of woody plants in Japan. Of these, Skimmia Japonica is 

 the only one which is much known in our gardens, although Phellodendron Amurense and 

 Orixa Japonica are now found in most large botanical collections. Evodia rutsecarpa, a shrub 

 or very small tree, with large, pinnate, strong-smelling leaves and terminal heads of minute 

 flowers, although not at all handsome, is an interesting plant, as it is from the bark that the 

 Japanese obtain the yellow pigment which they use in dyeing. For this purpose the bark, 

 which, with the exception of its thin brown outer coat marked with pale lenticels, is the color 

 of gamboge, is torn off in long strips, air-dried, and sent to the large cities. Evodia rutse- 

 carpa, which also inhabits central China and the Himalayas, is now becoming rare in Japan, 

 and I saw it only on the coast near Atami ; it is said to be still abundant, however, in Aidzu 

 and on the peninsula of Yamato. The scarlet aromatic fruit is used by the Japanese in 

 medicine. 



In Xanthoxylum there are four Japanese species. Of these, the most common, and the 

 most widely distributed at the north and in the mountainous regions of the main island at 

 elevations of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet above the sea, is Xanthoxylum piperitum. It is a 

 bushy shrub with many slender steins, or rarely a small tree with a well-developed trunk three 

 or four inches in diameter ; it is always a handsome plant, with dark or often nearly black 

 branchlets marked by pale spots and armed with stout straight spines ; with narrow unequally 

 pinnate leaves of about six pairs of ovate pointed leaflets, very dark green on the upper 

 surface and pale on the lower ; with small inconspicuous flowers and with heads of handsome 

 showy fruit four to six inches across ; the pods are rusty brown ; and the seeds, which do not 

 drop for some time after the pods open, are black and lustrous. The fruits of this plant are 

 gathered in large quantities by the Japanese before the pods open, and are used as a condiment 

 and in cooking, as we use pepper. In Hakodate and other northern towns it is commonly 

 exposed for sale throughout the year. 



A nobler plant than Xanthoxylum piperitum, and certainly one of the most beautiful of 

 the genus, is Xanthoxylum ailanthoides, which I saw only on the Hakone Mountains, where it 

 is abundant, and near the coast at Atami. It is a round-topped broad-branched tree, some- 

 times fifty or sixty feet tall, with a trunk twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, covered with 

 pale bark, upon which the corky excrescences common in many species of this genus are well 

 developed. The branchlets are stout and pale, and are covered with short stout spines. The 

 leaves vary from eighteen inches to four feet in length, and are unequally pinnate, with about 

 ten pairs of lateral leaflets and stout red-brown petioles; the leaflets are dark green, and 

 conspicuously marked on the upper surface with oil-glands, pale or nearly white on the lower 



