PINACEAE. PSEUDOTSUGA JAPONICA 53 



is on a very steep slope facing east, but sheltered by a parallel spur. The rocks 

 are of old volcanic origin and are overlaid with humus. As seen in this forest the 

 Japanese Pseudotsuga is a tree from 23 to 30 m. tall, with a trunk from 2 to 5 m. in 

 girth. The branches are comparatively few and near the top of the tree, and are 

 wide-spreading, not very thick, horizontally disposed and form a loose, broad, flat- 

 tened crown. Shirasawa describes the habit as conical, but I saw no trees that 

 could be so described. However, in mixed forests where Shirasawa discovered 

 this tree its habit may be different. The trunk is straight and clean of branches 

 for two-thirds the height of the tree. The bark is dull reddish brown, becoming 

 grayish brown on very old trees and on exposed trunks and is fissured into thin 

 narrow plates in which long corky lenticels are prominent; the plates split trans- 

 versely and flake off from below upward. On very old trees and near the base of 

 the trunk the plates may be half an inch thick. The shoot is perfectly glabrous and 

 pale yellowish gray, becoming whitish gray the second season. The winter-buds 

 are elongated and acute, as in other species of the genus; they are without resin and 

 are composed of shining chestnut-brown chaffy scales. The leaves are pale green 

 above, white beneath, straight or slightly curved, pectinately arranged and point for- 

 ward; they are from 1.5 to 2.5 cm. long, soft to the touch and on fruiting branches 

 at least of almost equal width throughout and rounded and always notched at 

 the apex. On seedlings and very young plants the leaves are acute. The cones 

 are ovoid to cylindrical-ovoid and vary in length from 4 to 6 cm.; they are 

 chocolate-brown, somewhat resinous and more or less pruinose when ripe, be- 

 coming nearly black with age. The cone-scales are broad, rounded and oblique 

 on the margin; the bract is strongly recurved in its exserted part, is easily 

 broken and the central awn-like lobe is much narrower and longer than the 

 lateral lobes, which are erose or laciniate. The wood is pale brown (dun color), 

 easily worked, of good quality and withstands damp very well. It is used for 

 making coffins, boards for ceilings and other interior work, but the tree is too rare 

 to be of commercial importance. It is evidently of slow growth, for on a piece 5.5 

 cm. in diameter I have counted with the aid of a lens over 50 annual rings and a 

 strip of board 6.3 cm. wide shows 30 such rings. As I saw this tree in the forest it 

 had nothing of special ornamental character to recommend it. Seedlings of this 

 Pseudotsuga were raised in this Arboretum in the spring of 1899, but the plants 

 did not prove hardy. The Arboretum is experimenting again with seeds I secured 

 from Nishinokawa in 1914. According to Beissner (in Mitt. Deutsch. Dendr. Ges. 

 XI. 53 [1902]) young plants were in cultivation in Ansorge's nursery, at Klein- 

 Flottbeck in Holstein, and in the Botanic Garden at Hamburg in 1902. 



This Pseudotsuga, Japanese names for which are Toga-suwara and Goyo-toga, 

 grows in small numbers in other parts of Tosa province, round Tanabe and be- 

 tween Owashii and Yoshino on the Kishu peninsula, Hondo, and in Kyushu, where 

 it is very rare indeed. It has not been reported l from anywhere else and is appar- 

 ently limited to a few localities in southeastern Japan and as far as is known is 

 everywhere a rare tree. This tree was discovered in July 1893 by Dr. Homi 

 Shirasawa. 



1 In the herbarium of the Imperial Botanic Garden, Tokyo, Dr. Hayata showed me material of 

 the Formosan plant which he had referred (in Tokyo Bot. Mag. XIX. 45 [1905]) to Pseudotsuga 

 japonica, and it certainly belongs to another species. Among other differences the Formosan plant 

 has orange-brown puberulous shoots, smaller bracts and a larger, differently shaped wing to the seeds. 

 It has been named P. Wilsoniana Hayata (Icon. PL Formos. V. 204, t. 15 [1915]). 



