600 TRACHYCARPUS 



TRACHYCARPUS FORTUNEI, Wendland. CHUSAN PALM. 



PALMACE.E. 



(T. excelsa, Wendland; Chamaerops excelsa, Martius, not Thunberg ; C. Fortune!, 



~ 



This palm, which is the only species that can be termed really hardy 

 in this country, varies in height according to the circumstances under 

 which it is grown. In the Temperate House at Kew there is an example 

 about 50 ft. high, but in the open air plants at least forty years old are 

 only about 12 or 15 ft. high. In the warmest counties, however, it is 

 25 to 30 ft. high. The stem is erect, cylindrical, clothed with coarse, 

 dark, stiff fibres, which are really the disintegrated sheathing bases of 

 the leaves. These fibres are employed by the Japanese and Chinese to 

 make ropes and coarse garments. The leaves, which persist many years, 

 are fan-shaped, ii- to 2-J ft. long, 2\ to 4 ft. wide, divided at the outside 

 into numerous deep, narrow, folded segments, 2 ins. wide, tapering to a 

 ragged point. The stalk is two-edged, and varies in length according to 

 the age of the specimen and the conditions under which it is grown ; it 

 is usually between 2 and 3 ft. long, and J to i in. wide, with small jagged 

 teeth on the margins. The flowers are borne in a large, decuryed, hand- 

 some panicle from near the top of the stem among the younger leaves ; 

 they are yellow, small, but very numerous. The panicles bear flowers 

 usually of one sex only, the female ones being the smaller and less 

 ornamental. Fruit a blue-black drupe about the size of a boy's marble. 



Although the Chiisan palm is perfectly hardy in the south and west 

 of Britain, in so far as it will, when properly established, withstand a 

 temperature of 32 or more of frost, it likes a spot screened from the 

 north and east winds. Exposed to blasts from those quarters it will live, 

 but has usually a miserable, battered appearance. When it was first 

 experimented with in the open air it was usual to cover it with mats or 

 branches, but this has been found to be unnecessary. On account of 

 its slow growth in the open air when young, it is usually the practice to 

 put out-of-doors plants which have already attained some size in the cool 

 greenhouse, in order that an immediate effect may be produced. Such 

 plants it is advisable to protect during severe (but only severe) weather 

 for a few years. For the rest this palm likes a rich loamy soil. It is a 

 gross feeder, and is much helped by an occasional thick top-dressing of 

 cow-dung. 



Its first introduction to Europe has to be credited to Siebold, who 

 sent seeds from Japan (where it is cultivated, but doubtfully indigenous) 

 to Leyden in 1830. Not many germinated, but of the few that did, one 

 was sent to Kew in 1836. In 1860 this plant was 28 ft. high, but no 

 one suspecting its hardiness, it was grown in the tropical palmhouse. 

 Fortune introduced plants and seeds in 1849, an d it was with some of 

 the plants so obtained that experiments were made in the open air with 

 such successful results. (See plate, vol. i., p. 57.) 



In Sir Edmund Loder's garden at Leonardslee there is a very 

 interesting palm obtained some years ago by him from Japan. Its leaves 



