26 FOREST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



Hokkaido, and in the mountain regions of Hondo climbing high on the trunks of trees, which 

 it encircles with great masses of lustrous foliage borne on stout branches standing out at right 

 angles sometimes to the length of several feet ; the leaves vary from an inch to four or five 

 inches in length and correspondingly in width, and show the connection of the climbing plant 

 with the arborescent type. 



There is a second arborescent Evonymus in Japan, a variety of the widely distributed 

 and variable Evonymus Europaeus, to which the name var. Hamiltonianus is given. This 

 handsome plant, with stout branchlets, large leaves, and showy fruit, was introduced from 

 Japan several years ago by the late Thomas Hogg, and it is now well established in the 

 Arnold Arboretum, where it flowers and fruits freely. It is one of the commonest of the 

 Japanese species in all mountain regions, and grows at least as far north as central Yezo, 

 where it becomes a tree twenty to thirty feet in height. 



Evonymus alatus. a variable plant in the development of the wings on the branches, to 

 which it owes its specific name, and in the size of the leaves and fruit, in some of its forms, is 

 also very abundant in the north and on the mountains of central Japan. The wing-branched 

 variety, which is the only deciduous-leaved Evonymus which I saw in Japanese gardens, where 

 it is rather a favorite, is now well known in those of the United States and of Europe, where 

 it is valued for the peculiar pink color the leaves assume in very late autumn. The variety 

 subtriflora, a more northern plant, with slender terete branchlets and small fruit, is, I believe, 

 unknown in gardens. It is one of the commonest shrubs in the mountain forests of Japan, 

 and on the shores of Lake Chuzenji, in the Nikko Mountains, I saw it rising to the height of 

 fifteen or eighteen feet, with slender diverging stems. 



In northern Japan there are three other species of Evonymus, all tall shrubs, with large 

 leaves and large showy fruit suspended on long slender stalks, which may be expected to 

 thrive in our climate, and to be decided acquisitions in our shrubberies. Of these Evonymus 

 Nipponicus and Evonymus oxyphyllus produce globose fruit, and Evonymus macropterus 

 more or less Broadly winged fruit. 



Of Celastrus nothing need here be said of the now well-known Celastrus articulatus, which 

 is one of the commonest plants on the mountains of Japan, except that its leafless branchlets, 

 covered with fruit, are sold in the autumn in great quantities in all Japanese towns, where 

 they are used in house decoration, for Avhich purpose they are admirably suited, as the bright- 

 colored fruit remains on them for many weeks. The second Japanese species, Celastrus 

 flagellaris, I saw only in the Botanic Garden in Tokyo, where there is a single small plant ; it 

 is a common Manchurian species, but appears to be exceedingly rare in Japan. I judge that 

 it has no particular horticultural value. 



Half a dozen genera of Rhamnacea? are included in the flora of Japan, among them Zizy- 

 phus, perhaps an introduced plant, often cultivated as a fruit-tree ; Berchemia racemosa, a 

 twining shrub with long slender branches, very ornamental during the last weeks of summer, 

 when the half-ripened fruit, which is produced in large terminal clusters, is bright red ; two or 

 three species of Rhamnus, of no horticultural value, and the curious tree, Hovenia dulcis, an 

 inhabitant also of China and the Himalaya region, and in Japan often cultivated for the thick- 

 ened sweetish fruit-stalks, which are edible, although insipid in flavor, and which enjoy among 



