Illustrations of Conifers. 69 



CRYPTOMERIA JAPONICA (Don). 



Veitch's Man. Conif. ed. 2, p. 263 (1900). 



Trees of Great Britain and Ireland, Vol. I. p. 128 (1906). 



AN evergreen tree attaining in China and Japan a height of 150 feet 

 or more with a girth of 20 to 25 feet. Bark reddish-brown, exfoliating 

 in long ribbon-like shreds. Leaves persistent for four or five years, 

 spirally arranged on the shoots, curving inwards and directed forwards, 

 awl-shaped, compressed, keeled on front and back, with stomata on 

 both surfaces, with the base decurrent on the branchlet. 



Male flowers clustered at the ends of the branchlets in false ra- 

 cemes. 



Cones globular, brownish, ripening in the first year but persisting 

 on the tree after the seeds have escaped ; scales twenty to thirty, 

 peltate, stalked, with sharp-pointed rigid processes. Seeds two to five 

 on each scale, three-sided, narrowly winged. 



This conifer was discovered in China in 1701 by J. Cunningham 

 who found it in the island of Chusan, off the coast of Chekiang, and 

 was discovered in Japan about 1692 by Kaempfer. In the latter 

 country it is a most important tree from an economic as well as an 

 ornamental point of view ; it occurs wild in extensive forests and 

 is also largely planted. The wood is used for a great variety of pur- 

 poses, especially for building. 



It was introduced into England by Captain Sir Everard Home, 

 who sent seeds from Chusan in 1842. The Bayfordbury specimen is 

 now 30 feet in height. 



