March 29, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest 



143 



tree, which is sometimes thirty or forty feet in height, is 

 not unlike a large-leaved Pear-tree, and as an ornamental 

 plant possesses little value. 



In arborescent plants of the family of Sapindaceae, Japan 

 is richer than eastern America, owing to the multipHcation 



tree — one of the largest and stateliest of all Horse-chest- 

 nuts. In the forests of the remote and interior mountain 

 regions of central Hondo, at elevations between 2,000 and 

 3,000 feet. Horse-chestnuts, eighty to one hundred feet 

 tall, with trunks three or four feet in diameter, are not un- 



of species of Maple in the former country, v^sculus, on 

 the contrary, which finds its headquarters in North 

 America, where there are five species, appears in Japan in 

 only one — ^Esculus turbinata. This, however, is a noble 



Fig. 24. — Acer Miyabei. — See page 142. 



common. These were perhaps the largest deciduous'trees 

 which I saw in the main island growingTnaturally in the 

 forest, that is, which had not been planted by men, and 

 their escape from destruction was probably due to their 



