INTRODUCTION 3 



Yokohama Nursery Company and one of the foremost horticul- 

 turists in Japan. Together we visited Mt. Kirishima and the 

 famous Azalea district of Kurume in Kyushu, also those near 

 Osaka and Tokyo. He introduced me to all the leading special- 

 ists, gave of his own store of knowledge freely, and without 

 his help it would have been quite impossible to have delved so 

 deeply into the cultivated Azaleas of Japan. It is with keen 

 pleasure that I acknowledge my indebtedness to this genial and 

 scholarly gentleman. I know not how many hundreds of speci- 

 mens of my own collecting have been available for this work, 

 and in addition, through the courtesy of the Director of Kew 

 and the Keeper of the Gray Herbarium of Harvard University, 

 I have had on loan all their material, so rich in old types of these 

 Azaleas. In Tokyo, through the courtesy of Professor J. Matsu- 

 mura, I have examined the material preserved in the Herbarium 

 of the Imperial Botanic Garden. Dr. Merrill has kindly loaned 

 me the material preserved in the Herbarium of the Bureau of 

 Science, Manila. To Dr. T. Nakai I am indebted for much 

 useful information relative to certain critical Azaleas to which 

 S. Komatsu has recently given names with brief descriptive 

 notes in Japanese. 



The study of long-cultivated garden plants is exceedingly 

 complex, and to fathom some of the problems is almost beyond 

 human skill. This statement is as trite as it is true, and I freely 

 confess that I have found the problems presented by many of 

 these Azaleas more intricate than those of the Japanese Cherries. 

 Notwithstanding my unusual opportunities in the field and in 

 the gardens of the Orient and the abundant herbarium material 

 at my command I should have been ill equipped for the task 

 but for the collection of living plants cultivated for nearly three- 

 quarters of a century on the Sargent estate in Brookline, Mass. 

 This collection has been zealously maintained and is rich in old 

 garden types introduced through Fortune and others, some of 

 which have apparently been lost in Europe. Professor Sargent's 

 knowledge of these Azaleas is profound, and it is under his sym- 

 pathetic guidance and help that this little treatise has developed 

 from chaos to order, and to him most largely is due what merit 

 it contains. 



