68 FOEEST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



cup is hemispherical, inclosing about a third of the oblong ovoid nut, which falls off free 

 when ripe." His view, too, that Quercus grosseserrata cannot be specifically distinguished 

 from the Saghalin and Manchurian Quercus Mongolica, will probably be found to be correct. 

 Quercus crispula appears to range farther south than Quercus grosseserrata, which extends 

 north to the Kurile Islands, and was not recognized by us in Hondo ; on the Nikko Moun- 

 tains, on the road to Lake Chuzenji, we saw, however, fine forests of Quercus crispula. In 

 central Yezo, where the two species grow side by side on the hills, Quercus crispula appears 

 the more common tree on low ground, near the banks of streams. Both have elliptical or 

 obovate-oblong coarsely and irregularly lobed leaves, resembling in color and texture those of 

 the common Oak of Europe. Their bark is pale or sometimes dark, and scaly ; and both 

 species under favorable conditions rise, to a height of eighty to a hundred feet, and produce 

 stems three to four feet in diameter. Both are timber-trees of the first class, and both, should 

 they thrive in this country, may be expected to add beauty and interest to our parks and 

 plantations. The smaller, shorter acorn of Quercus crispula appears to offer the only char- 

 acter for distinguishing the two trees; in their port, bark, and foliage they were indistin- 

 guishable to my eyes. 



The fourth Japanese White Oak, Quercus glandulifera, ranges in Yezo nearly as far north 

 as Sapporo, although it is only south of Volcano Bay that it is really abundant. This, the 

 common Oak of the high mountains of central Japan at elevations over 3,000 feet, is probably 

 the most widely distributed species of the empire ; it is a pretty tree, rarely more than thirty 

 or forty feet high, although on the hills above Fuknshima, on the Nakasendo, we saw 

 specimens nearly twice that height. The leaves are narrowly obovate or lanceolate-acute, 

 glandular-serrate, pale or nearly white on the lower surface, and from one to four inches in 

 length. The acorns are small, acute, and inclosed at the base only by the shallow thin- 

 walled cups covered with minute appressed scales. Like many American Oaks, this species 

 varies remarkably in the size of individuals, and in some parts of the country traversed by the 

 Nakasendo we found plants only a foot high covered with acorns. This Oak was sent to the 

 Arnold Arboretum many years ago from Segrez by Monsieur Lavallee. It is perfectly hardy 

 here, and has flowered for years, although it remains a bush, making no attempt to grow into 

 a tree. 



Of the other deciduous-leaved Oaks, Quercus serrata, one of the most widely distributed 

 of the Asiatic species, ranging, as it does, from Japan to the Indian Himalaya, is common in 

 dry soil near the coast below Yokohama and on the foothills of the mountains of central 

 Hondo. It is a small tree, twenty to forty feet high, with a slender black-barked trunk and 

 beautiful dark green lustrous oblong acute leaves, their coarse teeth ending in long slender 

 mucros, and with small acorns inclosed in cups covered with long, loose, twisted, and reflexed 

 scales coated with soft pale tomentum. In Japan this tree appears to spring up in waste 

 lands in great numbers ; it is only valued for the charcoal which is made from it. 



Quercus variabilis, a nobler tree of the same general character, we saw only in the grounds 

 of a temple near Nakatsu-gawa, on the Nakasendo, where there were specimens fully eighty 

 feet high, with tall straight trunks three or four feet in diameter, covered with thick pale 

 corky bark, which is sometimes used by the Japanese for the same purposes that we use the 



