112 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 263. 



many slender stems, or rarely a small tree with a well-de- 

 veloped trunk three or four inches in diameter; it is 

 always a handsome plant, with dark or often nearly black 

 branchlets marked by pale spots and armed with stout 

 straight spines ; with narrow, unequally pinnate leaves 

 with about six pairs of ovate, pointed leaflets, very dark 

 green on the upper surface and pale on the lower; with 

 small inconspicuous flowers and with heads of handsome 

 showy fruit four to six inches across, the pods rusty brown, 

 but the seeds, which do not drop for some time after the 

 pods open, black and lustrous. The fruit of this plant is 

 gathered in large quantities by the Japanese before the 

 pods open and is used as a condiment and in cooking, as 

 we use pepper. In Hakodate and other northern towns it 

 is commonly exposed for sale throughout the year. 



A nobler plant than Xanthoxylum piperitum, and cer- 

 tainly one of the most beautiful of the genus, is Xanthoxy- 

 lum ailanthoides, which I only saw in the Hakone Moun- 

 tains, where it is abundant, and near the coast at Atami. 

 It is a round-topped, broad-branched tree, sometimes fifty 

 or sixty feet tall, with a trunk twelve to eighteen inches in 

 diameter, covered with pale bark, upon which the corky 

 excrescences, common in many species of this genus, are 

 well developed. The branchlets are stout, pale and cov- 

 ered with short stout spines. The leaves vary from eigh- 

 teen inches to four feet in length and are unequally pinnate, 

 with about ten pairs of lateral leaflets and stout red-brown 

 petioles ; the leaflets are dark green and conspicuously 

 marked on the upper surface with oil-glands, pale or nearly 

 white on the lower surface, ovate-acute, often slightly fal- 

 cate, long-pointed, rounded or subcordate at the base, 

 finely serrate, stalked, four to six inches long and two to 

 four inches broad. The flowers, which are greenish white, 

 and small, and inconspicuous like those of all the plants of 

 this genus, appear in the Hakone Mountains at the end of 

 August or early in September in clusters four or six inches 

 across. The fruit I have not seen. In habit and in foliage 

 this is one of the most beautiful trees which I saw in Japan, 

 but as it does not range far north or ascend to the high 

 mountains, it is not probable that it will prove hardy in our 

 northern states. The other Japanese species of Xanthoxy- 

 lum are shrubs of no great beauty or interest. 



Simarubse, a mostly tropical family, to w^hich the familiar 

 Ailanthus of northern China belongs, appears in Japan only 

 in Picrasma guassioides, a member of a small tropical 

 Asian genus, which, as an inhabitant of Yezo, seems to have 

 strayed far beyond the limits of its present home. As 

 Picrasma ailanthoides appears in the forests near Sapparo, 

 it is a slender tree twenty to thirty feet in height, with a 

 trunk about a foot in diameter. The branchlets are stout, 

 dark red-brown and conspicuously marked by pale len- 

 ticles. The leaves are unequally pinnate, with slender 

 reddish petioles and four or five pairs of lateral leaflets, 

 which increase in size from the lower pair to the upper- 

 most ; they are membranaceous, very bright green, ovate- 

 acute, finely serrate, stalked, three to five inches long and 

 an inch to an inch and a half broad. The flowers, which 

 are produced in loose, long-branched, few-flowered, axil- 

 lary clusters, are yellow-green and not at all showy, but 

 the drupe-like fruit is bright red, and handsome in Septem- 

 ber, when the thickened branches of the corymb are of the 

 same color. It is, however, for the beauty of the color of 

 its autumn foliage that Picrasma guassioides should be 

 brought into our gardens. The leaves turn early, first 

 orange and then gradually deep scarlet, and few Japanese 

 plants which I saw are so beautiful in the autumn as this 

 small tree, which, judging from its northern home in Japan, 

 may be expected to flourish in our climate. It is a plant of 

 wide distribution, not only in Yezo and Hondo, but in Corea 

 and in northern and central China ; it occurs on Hong 

 Kong and Java, and is common on the sub-tropical Hima- 

 layas, which in Garwhal it ascends to an elevation of 8,000 

 feet above the ocean. To the bitterness of the inner bark, 

 which in this particular resembles that of the Quassia-tree, of 

 the same family, it owes its specific name. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 London Letter. . 



THE annual general meeting of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society was held last Tuesday. Sir Trevor Law^- 

 rence presided, and in commenting upon the year's work 

 of the society he pointed to the excellent results obtained 

 at Chiswick, where many important trials of plants had 

 been made. Financially the society is in a fairly satisfac- 

 tory condition. Its income for the present year is estimated 

 at ^"4,800, and its expenditure at ^4,500. There has been 

 a considerable increase hi the number of fellows, the jour- 

 nal continues to give satisfaction, and the meetings, confer- 

 ences and exhibitions have been most successful. 



Besides the great spring show in the Temple Gardens, 

 which will be held this year on May 25th and 26th, the 

 Council have decided to hold a show at Chiswick on July 

 nth, at which prizes will be offered for local exhibits, and 

 an autumn show will be held in the Royal Agricultural 

 Hall, Islington, from August 29th to September ist, inclu- 

 sive. 



A novel feature in the programme for this year is the 

 examination of students and others in the principles and 

 practice of horticulture, and a scheme is on foot for provid- 

 ing scholarships of the value of ^'26 annually, whereby the 

 most promising students may be enabled to pursue their 

 studies in connection with the society's gardens at Chis- 

 wick, or elsewhere. The first examination was held in the 

 early part of the year at the request of the Surrey County 

 Council, when seventy-two candidates presented them- 

 selves, with the result that twelve passed to the satisfaction 

 of the examiners in the higher grade and seventeen in the 

 lower grade. A second examination will be held in May 

 of this year, which it is proposed to extend to candidates 

 in all parts of England. 



American horticulturists will doubtless be interested in 

 the list of the principal subjects upon which lectures are 

 to be given at the meetings of the society this year. These 

 include : " Some effects of growing plants under glass of 

 various colors," The Rev. Prof. Henslow^ M. A. " Flowers 

 of the Riviera," Monsieur Henry L. de Vilmorin. " Orchid 

 Life in Guiana," Everard F. im Thurn. " How to Solve 

 Chemical Questions concerning the Soil without Chem- 

 istry," Prof Cheshire. "Fritillarias," Mr. D. Morris, M. A. 

 "Hardy Rhododendrons and Azaleas," Sir J. T. D. 

 Llewelyn, Bart. "Cannas," Mr. J. G. Baker, F. L. S. Sir 

 John Lubbock, Bart., has also been invited to give a lecture. 



The exhibition of plants concurrent with the general 

 meeting was a particularly good one for the second week 

 in February. Orchids were well represented by groups of 

 showy popular kinds as well as numbers of new and rare 

 plants. 



Cymbidium grandifiorum was shown in flower, the 

 same plant having flowered last year, which is noteworthy, 

 this species having the reputation of being difficult to 

 bloom. It was described by Reichenbach in 1866 from a 

 specimen flowered by Veitch, of Exeter, and named Hook- 

 erianum, in compliment to Sir Joseph Hooker. It was 

 afterward proved to be identical with C. grandifiorum of 

 Griffith. It is a native of the eastern Himalaya and may 

 be briefly described as a C. giganteum, with larger flowers 

 colored bright green, except the lip, which is creamy white 

 with reddish blotches. It obtained a first-class certificate. 



Phajus amabilis is a new hybrid of more than ordinary 

 merit. Its parents are P. grandifolius and P. tuberculosus, 

 and it was raised by Messrs. J. Veitch & Sons. It has pli- 

 cate stoutish leaves, a scape a foot high bearing four flow- 

 ers, which are nodding, three inches across, of the form of 

 P. tuberculosus, the sepals and petals blush white, tinged 

 with dull brown, the lip large, crisped and wavy, claret- 

 colored, lined with coppery red, flaked with white, paler 

 on the lateral lobes. It is singular that this plant should 

 differ so widely from the beautiful P. Cooksoni, flowered 

 three years ago and raised by Mr. N. C. Cookson from P. 



