Acanthopanax ^95 



A tree, attaining in Yezo 80 to 90 ft. in height, and 10 ft. or more in girth. 

 Bark very thick, 1 dark in colour, and deeply fissured. Branchlets stout, reddish 

 brown, glabrous, armed with short stout spines, which are enlarged at the base and 

 are often glaucous. Leaves sub-orbicular, but broader than long, averaging 6 

 to 10 in. in diameter, sub-cordate at the base, palmately five- or seven-nerved; on 

 adult trees, divided to one-third of the length of the blade by acute sinuses into 

 five ovate-triangular acuminate lobes, serrate in margin, with callous tips to the 

 teeth ; upper surface dark green, shining, glabrous ; lower surface with slight 

 whitish tomentum on the nerves, forming axil-tufts at their base, where they unite ; 

 petioles long and slender, more or less covered with scattered tomentum, especially 

 near the base. 



Flowers on long slender glabrous pedicels in many-flowered umbels, arranged 

 in terminal compound panicles, which are sometimes 2 ft. in diameter ; small, white 

 in colour, appearing in August and September. Fruit black, globose. 



1. Var. Maximowiczii, Schneider, Laubholzkunde, ii. 429 (1909). 



Aralia Maximowiczii, Van Houtte, in Flore des Serres, xx. 39, t. 2067-2068 (1874). 



This varietal name is applied for the sake of convenience to young trees in 

 cultivation, which only show juvenile foliage. The leaves differ from those 

 characteristic of adult trees, in being deeply lobed, with the sinuses extending 

 more than two-thirds the length of the blade. It is impossible to say whether, as 

 a result of being perhaps propagated by grafts from young seedlings, these trees 

 will preserve the seedling foliage indefinitely, or will, when older, develop normal 

 leaves. Seedlings occasionally show both kinds of foliage ; and Siebold's original 

 specimens also bear both shallow- and deeply-lobed leaves, with all intermediate 

 stages. 



This species is a native of China, Korea, Japan, Saghalien, and the Liu Kiu 

 Islands. In China, it is widely spread in the central provinces, from Szechwan and 

 Hupeh to Chekiang and Fokien, usually forming a tree 40 to 50 ft. high in the 

 mixed forests on the mountains at no great elevation. It is known to the Chinese 

 as tz'e ch'iu ; 2 but its timber is little valued. (A. H.) 



In Japan, where the tree is called hari-giri, it attains its largest size in the 

 forests of Hokkaido, where, Sargent states, it is often 80 feet in height and 4 or 5 ft. 

 in diameter, with a tall straight stem, covered with furrowed bark, and giving off 

 great limbs, which spread horizontally. In central Hondo, it is smaller in size. Mayr 3 

 who measured a tree in Hokkaido, which was 90 ft. high, states that this species 

 is fast in growth and remarkable for its capacity of enduring shade in the forest. 

 In Kiusiu I saw it in the forest, which covers the lower slopes of the volcano of 

 Kireshima at 2000 to 3000 ft. altitude. Here it is not so fine a tree as in Hokkaido, 

 the largest that I measured being about 60 ft. by 5 ft. 10 in. 



A. ricinifolium was introduced into Europe by Van Houtte, who figured in 

 1874 a young plant, which had been raised from a single seed received from the 



1 The bark is well shown in a photograph of a tree growing in Japan, reproduced by Jack in Mitt. Deut. Dend. Ges. 

 1909, p. 285. 2 C(. Bretschneider, Bot. Sink. ii. 344 (1892) and iii. 480 (1895). 



Fremdland. Wald- u. Parkbaume, 437 (1906). 



