May 3, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



193 



May from Lake Como across the country to Lake Maggiore, 

 and being haunted by the perfume of Lih'es-of-the-valley, 

 which here and there grew wild along the road in the shelter 

 of a wall. In the country near Washington the two-colored 

 Violet is also a delicious surprise to one who is not faSiiliar 

 with its delicate velvet petals of deep purple and pale violet, 

 like a Pansy waiting to be evolved. 



In the District of Columbia, too, the Mayflower is not so shy 

 and rare as in our colder climate, but one who drives out from 

 the capital may readily tind it by its fragrance in any wood 

 along 'the road far earlier than we dare look for it here, and 

 much more plentiful. 



All these early blossoms of spring have a value that the later 

 and more splendid darlings of the parterre miss — they have 

 the charm of surprise, the delight of promise, the hint of the 

 coming May, for which all hearts wait, on each succeeding 

 season, with impatience and desire. They tell us that the 

 dreary winter is over ; that the joy of summer is at hand ; that 

 warmth and fertility are coming back to tlie cold bosom of 

 mother earth, and thus we hail them as prophets and harbin- 

 gers of the pleasures to come. 



Hingham, Mass. M. C. RobbUlS. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — XII. 



TREES of the Rose family in the flora of Japan are not 

 numerous as compared with that of eastern America, 

 and among them there is not one of first-rate value as a 

 timber-tree. Horticulturally they are more important, and 

 Japanese gardens owe much of their interest to species of 

 Prunus. Although the most popular garden-tree in Japan, 

 Prunus Mume is probably not Japanese at all, but a native 

 of Corea, where, last summer, Mr. Veitch found it planted as 

 a shade-tree along the borders of the high-roads. This is 

 the tree which all foreign writers .upon Japan speak of as 

 the Plum, although it is really an Apricot. In cultivation 

 Prunus Mume produces white, rose-colored red, and often 

 double flowers, which appear before the leaves in February 

 and March, and are -revered as harbingers of spring. It 

 is planted in nearly every Japanese garden of any preten- 

 sions, and is one of the most universally used pot-plants. 

 Care and labor are often expended in producing dwarfed, 

 contorted or pendulous-branched specimens, which some- 

 times command what seem exorbitant prices. The por- 

 trait of one of these Apricot-plants growing in a pot was 

 published in vol. iii., page '^^,1, of this journal. 



A more important tree than Prunus Mume is the Japa- 

 nese Cherry, Prunus Pseudo-cerasus, the largest tree of 

 the Rose family in the empire, and, next to the Apricot, 

 more cultivated for flowers by the Japanese than any other 

 tree. In the forests of Yezo, Prunus Pseudo-cerasus occa- 

 sionally rises to the height of eighty feet and forms a trunk 

 three feet in diameter. In the character of the bark, in 

 habit and general appearance, it much resembles the Euro- 

 pean Cherry, the wild type of the familiar Cherry-tree of 

 our gardens and orchards, and as it appears in the forest it 

 might well be mistaken for that species. The Japanese 

 Cherry is common in Yezo and in all the mountain-regions 

 of Hondo up to 5,000 or 6,000 feet above the sea-level, 

 and often forms a considerable portion of the forest-growth, 

 although, in Hondo, all large trees appear to have been cut. 

 In the early autumn it is conspicuous in the landscape and 

 very beautiful, as the leaves turn deep scarlet and light up 

 the forest before the Maples assume their brightest colors. 

 For centuries the Japanese have planted these Cherry-trees 

 in all gardens and temple-grounds, and often by the bor- 

 ders of highways, as at Mukojima, near Tokyo, where there 

 is an avenue of them more than a mile in length along the 

 banks of the Sumi-da-ga\va, and at Koganei, where, a cen- 

 tury and a half ago, 10,000 Cherries were planted in an 

 avenue several miles long. The flowering of the Cherry- 

 tree is an excuse for a holiday, and thousands of men, 

 women and children pass the day under these long avenues 

 in more or less hilarious contemplation of the sheets of 

 bloom. The flowers of the wild tree are single, white, and 

 of the size of those of the garden Cherry, but, not unnatu- 

 rally, many varieties have been produced during the centu- 

 ries it has been a garden-plant. Bright red and pink single. 



flowered varieties are common in Japan, as well as many 

 double-flowered forms. Of these several have been intro- 

 duced into this country and Europe, and are now well 

 known in our gardens, where, however, they do not flower 

 as freely as they are represented to flower in their native 

 land. Prunus Pseudo-cerasus is a cold-climate plant, and 

 great summer heat evidently does not suit it, as in Tokyo 

 planted trees never grow to a great size, and by midsum- 

 mer are leafless ; so that, except during the short blooming 

 season, the excessive use of this tree is a real injury to the 

 appearance of the gardens and promenades of the capital 

 and of other southern cities. 



Prunus Pseudo-cerasus is of some value as a timber-tree, 

 producing hard, close-grained red wood, which is hardly 

 to be distinguished from that of the European Cherry. It 

 is used in considerable quantities for all sorts of wooden 

 dishes and other small articles of domestic use. Rather 

 curiously, perhaps, no attention has been paid to improv- 

 ing the size and quality of the fruit, which is not larger 

 than a small pea with a thin layer of flesh. 



The pendulous-branched Cherry-tree, with precocious 

 pink flowers, now common in our gardens, where it is 

 known as Prunus pendula, is often cultivated by the Jap- 

 anese, who, however, do not appear to feel the same re- 

 gard for this graceful tree that the Apricot and the Cherry 

 inspire. I never saw it growing wild, and cannot refer the 

 cultivated plants to a wild type, unless it is derived from 

 the Prunus subhirtella of Miquel, from which Prunus Mi- 

 quelliana appears distinct in its flowering time and in the 

 veining of the leaves. Specimens fifty v>x sixty feet high, 

 with wide-spreading, fountain-like heads, are not uncom- 

 mon in old temple-gardens in many of the cities of Hondo. 

 This beautiful tree thrives perfectly in our climate, and in 

 early spring, when its branches are covered as with a sheet 

 with its pale pink pendulous flowers, no tree is more beau- 

 tiful. 



I did not see the Cherries in bloom, and most of them 

 had dropped their fruit before I reached Japan ; several 

 species described by botanists I did not see at all, and of 

 several others I obtained a very superficial idea ; and there 

 is evidently still much to be learned of the proper limitation 

 of described east Asian species and varieties, and of 

 their geographical distribution. Among the little-known 

 species, Prunus Maximowiczii, of which a figure is pub- 

 lished on page 195 of this issue, from a drawing made from 

 material for which I am indebted to Professor Miyabe, seems 

 to deserve the attention of horticulturists. 



As I saw it in Yezo, Prunus Maximowiczii* is a tree 

 twenty-five to thirty feet in height, with a slender trunk 

 and branches covered with smooth pale or light red bark. 

 The young branchlets and petioles, the under surface of the 

 unfolding leaves and the branches of the inflorescence are 

 coated with rusty pubescence which only partly disappears 

 during the season. The leaves are elliptical or elliptical- 

 obovate, contracted at the apex into long slender points, 

 wedge-shaped or rounded at the base, long-petiolate, 

 coarsely and doubly serrate, thin, light green on the upper 

 and paler or rufous on the lower surface. The stipules are 

 foliaceous, lanceolate-acute, coarsely serrate, an inch long, 

 or rather shorter than the petioles, and deciduous. The 

 flowers, which, in the neighorhood of Sapparo, appear in 

 May, are produced on long slender pedicels in axillary 

 racemes three or four inches long, and conspicuous from 

 their large foliaceous bracts, coarsely serrate with gland- 

 tipped teeth ; they are half an inch across when expanded, 

 with leafy serrate hairy calyx-lobes and obovate or orbicu- 

 lar white petals. The fruit ripens in July and is oblong 

 and rather less than a quarter of an inch long. 



In Japan, Prunus Maximowiczii is not apparently a com- 

 mon tree. I saw a few specimens on the hills near Sapparo 

 and a single tree on the main island, where it is said by 

 IMaximowicz to grow in several of the mountain provinces ; 



* Pruinis Maximowiczii, Ruprechl, Bull. Phys. Math. Acad. St. Petilrsiourg, xv., 

 131.— Maximowicz, Ft. Amur., 89 ; MJt. Biol., xi., 700.— F. Schmidt, Fl. Saehal., No. 

 "7-— Fiancliet & Savatier, Eiiiim. Fl. Jap., i., iiS.— Korbes & Hemsley, Jour. Unn, 

 Soc, xxiii., 219. 



