88 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 261. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — VI. 



THE chiefly tropical family, Ternstroemiace.x, which, 

 in North America, is only represented by Gordonia 

 and Stuartia, trees and shrubs of the southern states, in 

 Japan appears in eight genera, in which are a number of 

 interesting plants, although none of them become very 

 large trees. Of these, Camellia Japonica is horticulturally 

 •the most important, for its relative. Camellia theifera, the 

 Tea-plant, is evidently a Chinese or Assam introduction 

 and not a native of Japan. In southern Japan the Camellia 

 is a common forest-plant from the sea-level to an altitude 

 of 2,500 feet, on the east coast growing as far north as lati- 

 tude thirty-six and nearly two degrees further on the 

 west coast. Here it is a dwarf bush only two or three feet 

 high, although where the soil and climate favor it the Ca- 

 mellia becomes a tree thirty or forty feet tall, with a hand- 

 some straight trunk a foot in diameter covered with smooth 

 pale bark, hardly distinguishable from that of the Beech. 

 In its wild state the flower of the Camellia is red and does 

 not fully expand, the corolla retaining a cup-shape until it 

 falls. In Japan, certainly less attention has been paid to 

 the improvement of the Camellia than in Europe and 

 America, although double-flowered varieties are known ; 

 and as an ornamental plant it does not appear to be partic- 

 ularly popular with the Japanese ; it is sometimes planted, 

 however, in temple and city gardens, especially in Tokyo, 

 where it is not an uncommon plant and where beautiful 

 old specimens are to be seen. 



Tsubaki, by which name Camellia Japonica is known in 

 Japan, is more valued for the oil which is pressed from its 

 seeds than for the beauty of its flowers. This oil, which 

 the other species of Camellia also produce, is used by the 

 women in dressing their hair and is an article of much com- 

 mercial importance. The wood of Camellia is close- 

 grained, moderately hard, and light-colored, turning pink 

 with exposure ; it is cut into combs, although less valued 

 for this purpose than boxwood, and is manufactured into 

 numerous small articles of domestic use. Sansan-kuwa, 

 Camellia Sasanqua, a small bushy tree of southern Japan 

 and China, is perhaps more commonly encountered in 

 Japanese gardens than Tsubaki, and in the first week 

 of November it was just beginning to open its delicate pink 

 flowers in the gardens of Nikko, although the night tem- 

 perature was nearly down to the freezing-point. 



Ternstrcemia Japonica and Cleyera ochnacea are small 

 bushy trees scattered from India to southern Japan, where 

 they are considered sacred by votaries of the Shinto re- 

 ligion, and are therefore planted in the grounds of Shinto 

 temples and in most private gardens. The evergreen 

 foliage of these two plants is handsome, especially that of 

 Ternstrcemia, but the flowers and fruit possess little beauty, 

 and they owe their chief interest to their association with 

 Japanese civihzation. 



Eurya Japonica is another member of the family, of 

 wide range from Ceylon and India to China, the Fejee 

 Islands and Japan, where it is exceedingly common in the 

 southern islands and in Hondo as far north at least as the 

 Hakone Mountains. It is usually a shrub only a few feet high ; 

 but I saw a specimen in the woods surrounding a temple 

 near Nakatsu-gawa on the Nagasendo which was fully thirty 

 feet in height, with a well-formed trunk nearly a foot in 

 diameter. Eurya, although not particularly handsome, is 

 interesting from the color of the leaves, which are yellowish 

 green on the upper surface and decidedly yellow below. 



Stuartia is represented in eastern America by two hand- 

 some shrubs, one an inhabitant of the coast region of the 

 south Atlantic states, and the other of the southern Alle- 

 ghany Mountains ; in Japan there are two and, perhaps, 

 three species. Of these, Stuartia monadelpha, which inhab- 

 its also central China, appears to be a southern plant only; 

 at any rate, I saw nothing of it in Japan, nor of the 

 little-known Stuartia serrata of Maximowicz. The third 

 species, Stuartia Pseudo-Camellia, is common in the 

 Hakone and Nikko Mountains between 2,000 and 3,000 



feet elevation, where it is a most striking object from 

 the peculiar appearance of the bark ; this is light red, very 

 smooth, and peels off in small flakes like that of the Crape 

 ]\Iyrtle (Lagersroemia) ; to this peculiarity it owes its com- 

 mon name, Saru-suberi, or Monkey-slider. Stuartia Pseudo- 

 Camellia is often a tree of considerable size ; on the shores 

 of Lake Chuzenji we measured a specimen whose trunk at 

 three feet from the ground girted six feet, and which was 

 upward of fifty feet high ; and specimens nearly as large 

 are common on the road between Nikko and Chuzenji. 

 The flowers of this tree, which resemble a single 

 white Camellia, are smaller and less beautiful than the 

 flowers of our coast species, Stuartia Virginica, but are 

 larger than those of the second American species, Stuartia 

 pentagyna, a handsome plant which is not made enough 

 of in our northern gardens, where it is perfectly hardy 

 and one of the best of the summer-flowering shrubs. 

 Stuartia Pseudo-Camellia was sent to America nearly thirty 

 years ago by the late Mr. Thomas Hogg, and it appears to 

 have flowered in the neighborhood of New York several 

 years before it was known in Europe, where of late it has 

 attracted considerable attention.* In New England this 

 Japanese species appears perfectly hardy, and two years 

 ago flowered in the Arnold Arboretum. 



Stachyurus prsecox, another Japanese member of this 

 family, is still little known in our gardens, although it was 

 one of the plants sent by Mr. Hogg to New York soon after 

 the opening of Japan to foreign commerce. It appears 

 hardy in the neighborhood of New York, as there is at 

 least one plant established in Prospect Park, on Long 

 Island. In Japan Stachyurus is exceedingly common in 

 the mountain-forests and at the sea-level from southern 

 Yezo to Kyushu, appearing as a tall graceful shrub with 

 thin semi-scandent branches and ovate-lanceolate acute 

 leaves. In summer or early autumn it forms axillary 

 spikes of flower-buds two or three inches long, and in very 

 early spring, before the appearance of the leaves, these 

 buds expand into bell-shaped pale yellow flowers ; these 

 are not more than a third of an inch long, but they are pro- 

 duced in great profusion, and as they appear so early in 

 the season Stachyurus will probably prove a popular plant 

 if it is found to flourish in cultivation. The genus is rep- 

 resented in central China and in the Himalaya Mountains 

 with a second species described as a small tree. 



The genus Actinidia, woody climbers of the Himalayas 

 and eastern Asia, appears in Japan in three species, of which 

 two at least are exceedingly common, and are conspicuous 

 features of the mountain vegetation. Of these, the largest 

 and most common, especially at the north, is Actinidia 

 arguta ; little need be said of this handsome plant, as it is 

 now common and well-established in our gardens, where 

 it grows with great vigor and rapidity, and where it is one 

 of the best plants of its class. We have heard a good deal 

 of the value of the fruit of this plant, which is depressed- 

 globular, an inch across, and greenish yellow ; it is eaten 

 in Japan, but the flavor is insipid, and its merits appear to 

 have been exaggerated. It was offered for sale in the 

 streets of Hakodate in great quantities, but, of course, green 

 and hard, as the Japanese use all their fruit before it ripens. 



Actinidia polygama, although it inhabits Manchuria and 

 Saghalin, and is common in the forests of Hokkaido, is 

 more abundant than those which cover the mountains of cen- 

 tral Japan ; it is a more slender plant than Actinidia arguta, 

 with elliptical, acute, slightly serrate, long-stalked leaves. 

 The fruit is an inch and a half long, half an inch broad in 

 the middle and narrowed at the two ends ; it is canary-yel- 

 low, rather translucent, soft and juicy, with an extremely dis- 

 agreeable flavor. Actinidia polygama does not, like Acti- 

 nidia arguta, climb into the tops of tall trees ; its weaker 

 stems tumble about and form great tangles sometimes 

 twenty feet or more across and fifteen or twenty feet 

 high. The most remarkable thing about this plant is that 

 in summer the leaves toward the ends of the branches 



. * See Rev. HorL, 1879. t. 430. — Card. CJiron., ser. 4, iv., 187, f. 22. — Bot. Mag., t. 

 7045. _ ^ 



