Sophora 3 7 



SOPHORA JAPONICA, Sophora Tree 



Sophora japonka, Linnaeus, Mantissa i. 68 (1767); Loudon, Arb. et Frut. Brit. ii. 563 (1838); 

 Shirasawa, Iconographie des Essences Forestieres du Japon, i., Text, p. 86, Plate 50 (1900). 



A large tree, with a straight cylindrical stem of considerable height in some 

 cases, but more often in cultivated examples dividing at no great distance above the 

 base ; branches tortuous, with pendent tips ; crown of foliage, large, broad, and 

 rounded in shape. Bark brown or greyish and scaly, fissured longitudinally, but to 

 no great depth ; on young shoots and older branchlets, smooth and dark green. 



Leaves deciduous, alternate, unequally pinnate, with nine to fifteen leaflets, 

 which are sub-opposite, oval, pointed at the apex, often ending in a short bristle, 

 dark green and opaque above, glaucous beneath. In the ordinary cultivated form 

 they are apparently glabrous, but with a lens minute hairs may be detected on both 

 surfaces. The petiolules are velvety ; the main stalk is greenish, swollen at the base, 

 and slightly pubescent. In certain wild specimens from China they are green and not 

 glaucous beneath ; and in Hupeh a well-marked variety occurs, in which the under 

 surface of the leaflets, the petiole, and young shoots are densely white pubescent. 



Flowers in large, loosely branched terminal panicles. They are somewhat vari- 

 able in colour ; in Central China white, at Canton a bright yellow, in cultivation in 

 England pale yellow, sometimes tinged with purple. Calyx small, bell-shaped, five- 

 toothed. Corolla, standard large, obtuse, round, recurved ; wings oval-oblong ; 

 keel semi-orbicular, rounded, and of the same length as the wings. Pod long- 

 stalked, I to 2 inches long, glabrous, fleshy, compressed, with a beak at the apex, 

 and constricted between the seeds, which are one to five in each pod, dark brown in 

 colour and kidney shaped.^ 



In England the tree produces flowers regularly, late in the season, in August, 

 September, and October, but seldom if ever fruits. 



Identification 



Sophora japonica is readily distinguished in summer by the leaves, the characters 

 of which have been already given, and by the branchlets, which are angled, very 

 smooth and dark green, both in the young shoots and those of the second year. 

 When the young shoots are cut they emit a strong peculiar odour. In winter the 

 characters of the buds and branchlets must be noted. The buds are spirally arranged 

 on the shoots ; solitary or in pairs, one placed above the other ; naked, i.e. not 

 surrounded by any true scales, and dark violet densely pubescent. They are 



' Seedling. Seeds sown early in the year at Colesborne produced two or three young plants, which showed the following 

 characters in July : Caulicle an inch or more in length, terete, green, glabrous, ending in a long whitish tap-root with numerous 

 lateral fibres. Cotyledons oblong-spathulate, | inch long, entire, rounded at the apex, tapering at the base, sub-sessile, 

 coriaceous, dark green and minutely pubescent above, pale green below. Stem white appressed pubescent, giving off alternately 

 about six compound leaves ; the lower three with five leaflets, the terminal leaflet being larger and broader in proportion to its 

 length than the others ; the upper three with 7 to 9 leaflets, uniform in size and shape ; all the leaflets oval, entire, 

 shortly-stalked, their under surface with a scattered appressed pubescence, dense on the midrib. Small ovoid densely pubescent 

 buds are produced, one in the axil of each leaf, the shoot being terminated by an oblong white pubescent larger bud. 



