LARIX LEPTOLEPIS. 397 



WILLIAM GRIFFITH (1810 1845) completed his education at University College, 

 London, where he distinguished himself in the medical classes, especially that of 

 Botany, of which Dr. Lindley was the Professor. He went to India in 1832 as assistant 

 surgeon on the Madras establishment, and was shortly afterwards appointed by the 

 Government to investigate the forests of Tenasserim. In 1835 he accompanied Doctors 

 Wallich and McClellaiid into Assam for the purpose of reporting on the growth of the 

 Tea-plant, exploring also the Khasia and Naga Hills ; from the latter he passed 

 through the Hookung valley down the Irrawadi to Rangoon. Having been appointed 

 surgeon to the Embassy to Bhotan, he explored part of that country and also part 

 of Sikkim ; he was afterwards attached to the army of the Indus for the purpose 

 of examining the vegetation of the Indus, and after the subjugation of Cabul he 

 penetrated to Khorassan. No botanist ever made such extensive explorations nor 

 collected so many specimens as Griffith did during the brief thirteen years of his Indian 

 career. Wherever he travelled he made sketches of the most striking features in the 

 scenery, and his itinerary diaries are full of information not only on the botany, but also 

 on the zoology, geology, physical geography, etc., of the countries through which he 

 passed. Among the plants discovered by him were F'anda ccerulea, V. ccerulescens, 

 Cymbidium eburneum, Cyperorchis Master^ii and other Orchids that will long retain 

 a place in British gardens. In 1841 he was appointed to the superintendence of 

 the Botanic Garden at Calcutta during the absence of Dr. Wallich who had been 

 invalided home ; but on the return of the latter, he resumed his medical duties at 

 Malacca where he contracted a disease of the liver, which terminated his life at the age 

 of thirty -five, 



Larix leptolepis. 



A slender tree resembling the European Larch with a trunk 60 80 

 or more feet high and 1'5 2 '5 feet in diameter covered with 

 reddish bark ; reduced to a small shrub or stunted bush at the limits 

 of arborescent vegetation on Fivji-yama. Branches spreading, with lateral 

 ramification at the distal end. Braiichlets more rigid than in the 

 European species, with light brown bark fluted with oblique longitu- 

 dinal cortical outgrowths. Leaves in tufts of thirty fifty, narrowly 

 linear, flat, 0'5 1*25 inch long, pale green above with two stomatiferous 

 lines beneath. Staminate flowers globose-conic, 0'35 inch in diameter, light 

 yellow-brown. Ovuliferous flowers sessile, rose-pink ; bracts large in 

 proportion to the scale, broadly lanceolate, cuspidate, reflexed at the 

 apex. Cones globose-conic, 1*25 inch long and 1 inch broad ; scales 

 subquadrate, rounded and reflexed at the apical margin ; bracts enclosed, 

 half as long as the scale. 



Larix leptolepis, Gordon, Pinet. ed. I. 128 (1858) ; and ed. II. 173 (1875). Murray, 

 Pines and Firs of Japan, 89 (1863), with figs. Regel in Gartenfl. XX. 102 (1871). 

 Hoopes, Evergreens, 25 i. Masters in Journ. Linn. Soc. XVIII. 522 ; Gard. Chron. 

 XIX. (1883), p. 88, with fig. ; and Journ. R. Hort. Soc. XIV. 41. Beissner, 

 Nadelholzk. 318, with fig. Mayr, Abiet. Jap. Reiches, 63, t. 5, fig. 14. 



L. japonica, Carriere, Traite Conif. ed. I. 272 (1855) ; and ed. II. 3'53. Murray, 

 Pines and Firs of Japan, 9, with figs. 



Abies leptolepis, Siebold and Zuccarini, Fl. Jap. II. 12, t. 105 (1842). 



Pinus leptolepis, Endlicher, Synops. Conif. 130 (1847). Parlatore, D. C. Prodr. 

 XVI. 410. 



P. Larix, Thunberg, Fl. Jap. 275 (not Linnaeus and exclu. syns. ). 



Eng. Japanese Larch. Fr. Meleze du Japon. Germ. Japanische Larche. Ital. 

 Larice giapponese. Jap. Toga, Kara-matzu, Fuji-matzu. 



The Japanese Larch first became known to science through 

 Kaempfer, who mentions it in his "Amoenitates Exoticse," published 

 in 1712.* The only other European botanists who saw it prior to 



* There can be no doubt that Larix leptolepis was the Larch seen by Kaempfer, and 

 not the Chinese tree that bears his name. Kaempfer was never in China, nor is the Chinese 

 Larch wild or cultivated in Japan. 



