FRUITS AND FLOWERS OF NORTHERN JAPAN. 45 



a, wild strawbeny, two species of raspberries, a chestnut, a wal- 

 nut, a grape, and the kokuwa. Huckleberries, checkerberries, 

 cranberries, and blackberries although found are, I think, nowhere 

 abundant and practically never made use of. Some two or three 

 species of strawberries are found ; but the only one of an}' impor- 

 tance is Fragaria vesca, which in some districts is so abundant 

 that the manufacture of jam from the fruit was at one time an 

 important industrj'. This jam by the way was particularly high 

 flavored and delicious. I have cultivated this strawberry in my 

 garden, and have found it unusually vigorous and fairly produc- 

 tive, the fruit being small to medium in size, whitish red when 

 ripe, and very sweet and high flavored, with a taste altogether 

 different from that of our varieties. The chief reason, however, 

 for m}' mentioning the cultivation of this berry, is to call attention 

 to a peculiarity which I do not recollect to have heard of in any 

 other variety. We have our so-called pistillate sorts in great 

 number. This species, as I cultivated it, was functionally dioe- 

 cious. A certain proportion of the plants, — in my patch about 

 one-third, — produced large flowers which contained large and perfect 

 stamens but very small and imperfect pistils. These plants never 

 produced any fruit ; the flowers simply- dried up. These plants 

 were then practically' staminate, although the pistils were not 

 entirely aborted. The other plants produced smaller flowers with 

 perfect pistils, and stamens which were -much shorter and smaller 

 than in the flowers on the first kind of plants ; but even these 

 stamens produced apparently perfect pollen. There was a little 

 diflerence in the habit of growth and the general appearance of 

 the two kinds of plants which, with practice, I judged would 

 suffice to enable one to select either sort at pleasure. My depart- 

 ure from Japan interrupted the observatious upon this most 

 interesting plant that I had in view for determining numerous 

 points which will occur to many of you, and my first attempt at 

 importation made last year proved a complete failure. American 

 varieties of strawberries, of which a number have been tried, do 

 remarkably well in all respects. Of one importation I succeeded 

 in making one plant only of the Sharpless and two only of the 

 Charles Downing live ; and j^et, before winter set in, without any 

 unusual care, these had increased to fifty and two hundred and 

 fifty plants respectively. This, from plants which on May 1st 

 were hanging between life and death, I considered a remarkable 



