THE LAUREL, EUPHORBIA, AND NETTLE FAMILIES. 57 



states ; but it will be valued for its botanical interest, and not for its beauty. And this is 

 true of the other Japanese tree of the Euphorbia family, Excoecaria Japonica, which may 

 possibly prove hardy here in New England, as we found it growing on high elevations on the 

 Nakasendo near Agematsu in central Japan, as well as on the high Otome-toge in the 

 Hakone Mountains ; and Mr. Veitch gathered specimens on Mount Chokai-zan, on the north- 

 west coast of Hondo. It is a small tree with thick firm dark green leaves which vary from 

 oval or obovate to obovate-lanceolate, and are sometimes six or seven inches long, and three- 

 lobed fruit three quarters of an inch in diameter. 



Of the Nettle or Elm family, Japan possesses some important trees, although in Elms 

 themselves the flora of Japan is poor as compared with that of eastern North America, where 

 there are five well-distinguished species, while in Japan there are only two ; these are both 

 continental, reaching in Japan their most eastern home. In Hondo Elm-trees are not com- 

 mon, and in that island are nowhere such features of vegetation as they are in our New 

 England and middle states and in Europe, and it is only in mountain forests between 3,000 

 and 5,000 feet above the sea-level that occasional small plants of Ulmus campestris, with 

 branchlets often conspicuously winged, appear. In Yezo, however, this tree is much more 

 abundant, growing on the river-plains nearly at the sea-level and in the forests which cover 

 the low hills, not infrequently becoming a prominent feature of the landscape. In Sapporo, 

 where many fine old specimens were left in the streets by the American engineers who laid 

 out the town, individuals seventy or eighty feet tall, with trunks three or four feet in diam- 

 eter, may be seen. The broad heads of graceful pendent branches reminded us of New 

 England, for this Japanese form of the Old World Elm has much of the habit of the American 

 White Elm. The portrait of one of these trees (see Plate xviii.), although not a large one, 

 growing a mile or two from Sapporo, gives a fair idea of the habit of this tree in Yezo. 



The second Elm of Japan grows in all the mountain-woods near Sapporo. The Russian 

 botanists have considered it a variety of Ulmus scabra, to which the name laciniata has been 

 given, and which is principally distinguished by the peculiar shape of the leaves, which are 

 coarsely serrate, often six or seven inches long, three or four inches broad, and three-lobed at 

 the wide apex. It is a small tree, barely more than thirty feet tall, as we saw it, and very 

 fragrant, like our American Slippery Elm, which in habit it much resembles. It is from the 

 touo-h inner bark of this tree that the Ainos weave the coarse brown cloth from which their 



o 



clothes are made. The process is a simple one ; the bark is stripped from the trees in early 

 spring, and is then soaked in water until the bast, or inner bark, separates from the outer in 

 long strips, which are twisted by the women into threads, and are then ready for use. This 

 interesting tree is not in cultivation, I believe, and we reached Yezo too late to obtain its 

 seeds. It is desirable, however, that it should be brought into our gardens, not only on 

 account of the curious appearance of the leaves, but that its development may be watched ; 

 for when it can be compared in a living condition with the European and Siberian forms of 

 Ulmus scabra. it may prove sufficiently distinct to be regarded as a species. 



The Keaki, Zelkova Keaki, a member of this family, is, perhaps, the largest deciduous- 

 leaved tree of Japan ; it is its most valuable timber-tree. The Keaki may be described as a 

 Beech, with the foliage of an Elm. The bark is smooth and pale, like the bark of a Beech- 



