214 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 273. 



scar left by the deciduous calyx. Unfortunately the name 

 Pyrus alnifolia which has been given to this tree is 

 not applicable, it having been previously applied to an en- 

 tirely different plant, Amelanchier alnifolia, by Sprengel in 

 1825, and as a new name must be found for it, I am glad of 

 the opportunity of associating with this fine tree that of 

 Professor Kingo Miyabe, whose knowledge of the flora 

 of Hokkaido is unrivaled. Pyrus Miyabei * is one of the 

 common trees of the forests of central Yezo, and, according 

 to Maximowicz, it inhabits the province of Nambu, in 

 Hondo, and southern Manchuria. So far as I know, it has 

 not been introduced into our gardens, where it may be ex- 

 pected to flourish. 



Of true Apple-trees there is apparently only a single indig- 

 enous species in Japan, the Pyrus Toringo of Siebold. 

 This is the tree which is often cultivated in American and 

 European gardens as Pyrus Malus floribunda, Pyrus micro- 

 carpa, Pyrus Parkmani, Pyrus Halleana, Pyrus Sieboldii 

 and Pyrus Ringo. It is a common and widely distributed 

 plant in Japan, growing from the sea-level in Yezo to 

 elevations of several thousand feet in central Hondo, 

 usually in moist ground in the neighborhood of streams. 

 Sometimes it is a low bush, but more often a tree fifteen to 

 thirty feet in height, with a short stout trunk and spreading 

 branches. The leaves are exceedingly variable, and on 

 the same plant are often oblong, rounded or acute at the 

 apex, or broadly ovate or more or less deeply three-lobed. 

 The fruit, which, like that of the Siberian Pyrus baccata, 

 loses the calyx before it is fully ripe, resembles a pea in 

 size and shape, and in color varies from bright scarlet to 

 yellow. In early spring Pyrus Toringo is one of the most 

 beautiful of the trees found in our gardens, where it is per- 

 fectly hardy, and where it covers itself every year with fra- 

 grant pink or red single or semi-double flowers. 



Pyrus Sinensis, the common cultivated Pear-tree of Japan, 

 although now growing spontaneously in some mountain 

 regions, is probably a native of northern China and Man- 

 churia; and of an indigenous Pear-tree, of which we ob- 

 tained a supply of seeds in the forests of the Nikko Moun- 

 tains, I have not yet sufficient information to speak. 



Crateegus, which, in eastern America, abounds with many 

 species which are conspicuous features of vegetation in dif- 

 ferent parts of the country, is only represfented in Japan by 

 Crataegus chlorosaca, one of the black-fruited group related 

 to Crataegus Douglasii of our Pacific states, which it much 

 resembles. It is not rare in the neighborhood of Sapparo, 

 where it grows near streams in low, wet soil, and apparently 

 does notrange south of Yezo. The flowers are not large, and 

 as a garden-plant this species has little to recommend it. 



The Saxifrage family, which is conspicuous in Japan 

 with a large number of shrubs, including some which have 

 become important features in our gardens, has only a sin- 

 gle Japanese arborescent representative ; this is the now 

 well-known Hydrangea paniculata, which is one of the 

 most common northern and mountain plants, and which 

 occasionally in favorable situations, especially on the hills 

 of central Yezo, becomes a tree twenty-five to thirty feet 

 in height, with a short well-formed trunk a few inches in 

 diameter and branches stout enough for a man to climb 

 into. From the branches the Ainos make their pipes. 



In the Witch-hazel family, Distylium racemosum, an 

 evergreen tree of the southern islands and of southern 

 China, with peculiar and exceedingly hard dark-colored, 

 valuable wood, will require in this country the mild cli- 

 mate of the extreme southern states and of California. The 

 Japanese Hamamelis, however, is already an inhabitant 

 of our gardens, where, unlike the American species which 

 flowers in the autumn, it produces its orange or wine-col- 

 ored flowers in March. Hamamelis Japonica is one of the 

 common forest-shrubs or small trees in its native country. 



where specimens occasionally occur thirty or forty feet in 

 height, with stout straight trunks and broad, shapely heads. 

 In the autumn the leaves turn bright, clear yellow ; but on 

 one form which we found on Mount Hakkoda, near 

 Aomori, with small, thicker, often rounded leaves (Hama- 

 melis arborescens of Hort. , Veitch), they were conspicuous 

 from their deep rich vinous red color. This may, perhaps, 

 prove to be a second Japanese Witch-hazel. 



We were fortunate in securing a good supply of ripe 

 seeds of the little-known Disanthus cercidifolia of Maxi- 

 mowicz, a curious and interesting member of the Witch- 

 hazel family, and abundant material, from which Mr. Faxon 

 has made the drawing which is reproduced on page 215 of 

 this issue. Disanthus, of which only one species is known, 

 is a shrub with slender spreading branches, eight or ten 

 feet high, stout terete red-brown branchlets conspicuously 

 marked with pale lenticels and obtuse buds covered with 

 chestnut-brown imbricated scales. The leaves are sub- 

 orbicular, rounded and minutely mucronate at the apex, or 

 rarely orbicular-ovate and sharp-pointed, cordate or rarely 

 truncate at the base, entire, palmately five or seven nerved, 

 dark blue-green on the upper surface, pale on the lower, thick 

 and firm or ultimately sub-coriaceous, three or four inches 

 long and broad, with reticulated veinlets and stout petioles 

 one or two inches long and thickened at the base. In the 

 autumn they turn deep vinous red or red and orange. The 

 flowers appear in October, when the fruit developed from 

 the flowers of the previous year ripens ; they are dark pur- 

 ple, sessile, base to base, in two-flowered heads on slender- 

 ridged peduncles produced from scaly buds, and are each 

 surrounded by three thick ovate, obtuse woolly, closely im- 

 bricated bracts which form the apparent connective between 

 the two flowers. The calyx is five-parted, the divisions imbri- 

 cated in aestivation, ovate, obtuse, latitudinally unequal, 

 reflexed, and much shorter than the five lanceolate, acute 

 petals imbricated in aestivation, spreading into a star- 

 shaped corolla and slightly incurved at the apex. The 

 stamens are as long as the lobes of the calyx and are in- 

 serted on its base opposite the petals ; the filaments are 

 short and broad, as long as the anthers, which are nearly 

 as broad as long, attached on the back, two-celled, extrorse, 

 the cells opening longitudinally. The ovary is superior, 

 ovate, compressed, two-celled, gradually contracted into 

 two short spreading styles stigmatic at the apex ; the 

 ovules are numerous in each cell, suspended from its apex, 

 anatropous. The fruit is a woody ovoid two-celled capsule, 

 which opens loculicidally, with a thin cartilaginous inner 

 coat separable from the thick hard outer covering. The seeds, 

 of which there are a number in each cell, are ovate, acute, 

 compressed, angled by mutual pressure, with a thick, hard, 

 dark chestnut-brown lustrous coat, an oblong pale lateral 

 hilum and thin albumen surrounding the terete embryo, 

 with a long erect radicle and thick ovate cotyledons. 



Disanthus cercidifolia t is not rare in the valley of the 

 Kisogawa on the Nagasendo, in central Hondo, where it 

 is occasionally found, covering steep hill-sides with thick- 

 ets of at least a quarter of a mile in extent. In habit and 

 in the autumn color of its leaves Disanthus is one of the 

 most beautiful shrubs which I saw in Japan, and if it flour- 

 ishes in our gardens it should prove one of the best plants 

 of its class recently introduced into cultivation. C. S. S. 



* Pyrus Miyabei. 



Crataegus alnifolia, Siebold & Zncn'axim.Abbild. Acad. Miinch., 1844, 130 Regel, 



Act. Hort. Petrojt., i., 125. 



Sorbus alnifolia, Miquel, Ann. Mus. Lugd. Bat., i., 249 (1S63).— Maximowicz, Mel. 

 Biol., ii., 173. — Wenzig;, Linnaa, xxxiii.. 61. 



Aronia alnifolia, Decaisne, Notj. Arch. Mus , x., 100 (1871). 



Foreign Correspondence. 

 Paris Letter. 



THE establishment and spread of technical instruction 

 in horticulture is quite a new feature of French edu- 

 cational life, although it is now advocated by all, and in 

 many places pretty largely endowed by state or local au- 

 thorities. The paramount importance of horticulture, as a 

 wealth-producing industry, was not nearly as generally 

 recognized as it is now, before the great progress made in 

 the means of transportation gave rise to a large inland and 



t Maximowicz, M^l. Biol., vi., 21 (1866). 



