THE MAPLE FAMILY. 



IN arborescent plants of the family of Sapindacese, Japan is richer than eastern America, 

 owing to the multiplication of species of Maple in the former country. ^Esculus, on the 

 contrary, which finds its headquarters in North America, where there are five species, appears 

 in Japan in only one, vEsculus turbinata. This, however, is a noble tree, one of the 

 largest and stateliest of all Horse-chestnuts. In the forests of the remote and interior moun- 



O 



tain regions of central Hondo, at elevations between 2,000 and 3,000 feet, Horse-chestnuts, 

 eighty to one hundred feet tall, with trunks three or four feet in diameter, are not uncommon. 

 These were perhaps the largest deciduous trees which I saw on the main island growing natu- 

 rally in the forest, that is, which had not been planted by men, and their escape from destruc- 

 tion was probably due to their inaccessible position and to the fact that the wood of the 

 Horse-chestnut is not particularly valued by the Japanese. In habit and in the form, venation, 

 and coloring of the leaves, the Japanese Horse-chestnut resembles the Horse-chestnut of our 

 gardens, the Grecian /Esculus Hippocastanum, and at first sight it might easily be mistaken 

 for that tree, but the thyrsus of flowers of the Japanese species, which is ten or twelve inches 

 lono- and onlv two and a half to three inches broad, is more slender ; the flowers are smaller 



ir> / 



and pale yellow, with short, nearly equal petals ciliate on the margins ; and the fruit is that 

 of the Pavias, being smooth and showing no trace of the prickles which distinguish the 

 true Horse-chestnuts. The Japanese Horse-chestnut reaches southern Yezo, finding .its most 

 northern home near Mororan, on the shores of Volcano Bay, at the level of the ocean ; it is 

 generally distributed through the mountainous parts of the three southern islands, sometimes 

 ascending in the south to an elevation of 4,000 or 5,000 feet. There seems to be no reason 

 whv this tree, which has already produced fruit in France, should not flourish in our northern 

 states, where, as well as in Europe, it is still little known. In northern Japan the fruits are 

 exposed for sale in the shops, although they are probably used only as playthings for the 

 children. 



To the Maples the forests of Japan owe much of their variety, beauty, and interest. Not 

 less than twenty species are known in Japan, while in all of North America there are only 

 nine, with six on the eastern side of the continent. None of the Japanese Maples, however, 

 grow to the size of real timber-trees, or can be compared in massiveness and grandeur with 

 some of the American species, which are unrivaled in size and beauty by the Maples of any 

 other part of the world. 



Some of the Japanese Maples are exceedingly common and form a conspicuous feature of 

 the forest vegetation, and others are rare and confined to comparatively small regions. Sev- 

 eral of the species I did not see at all, and of others only one or two isolated individuals. The 

 most common of the Japanese Maples, and the largest, is Acer pictum, a handsome small tree, 

 not unlike our Sugar Maple in general appearance ; it is one of the most abundant trees in 



