May 31, 1S93.J 



Garden and Forest. 



233 



such as could be found nowhere but in old Japan, represents 

 a stony hill-side, near Jennenji temple, glowing with Azaleas 

 of the most brilliant tints. Here the rough boulders seem to 

 have been fashioned into the semblance of gods, sitting plac- 

 idly, with their hands upon their knees, amid the wealth of 

 bloom, and in some cases the flowers seem to be growing in 

 their stony arms. The little "wet gods" sit scattered about 

 upon the hill in peaceful conclave, while the pink and crimson 

 and white blossoms nod about their ears, and the brown twigs 

 and small green leaves brush their shoulders. Grotesque it 

 all is, but most child-like and pleasing, a delightful conception 

 of unknown antiquity. 



In many of these pictures the Bamboo plays its picturesque 

 part, as it does in all the landscape of Japan, where its feathery 

 foliage and polished jointed stems are a marked and beautiful 

 feature of the country. Among Mr. Parsons's studies are very 

 lovely glimpses of parks and forests, where this soft and bril- 

 ,' liant green is contrasted with exquisite effect with the soft dark 

 masses of the Pines and Cryptomerias, which are nobly ren- 

 dered. Other scenes of misty hill-side and rich purple dis- 

 tance might have well been found nearer home. But the 

 Palms and the Bamboos, the quaint gardens, with their stone 

 lanterns, their dainty pavilions and their clipped bushes, are 

 distinctively oriental, as are the tiny tea-houses and the way-side 

 Buddha in the shadow of the rock, and the little dwelling 

 which the artist occupied, its door-yard ablaze with flowering 

 shrubs, huge purple Irises growing beside the foot-path. 



We might well take a lesson for the planting of the Wistaria 

 from these trellises, from which the great white blossoms 

 hang, or these old trees of which the vines have taken posses- 

 sion and festooned with purple masses. But when may we 

 hope to see such sheets of glowing red Lilies in our grave- 

 yards, or these pink fields of Polygonum contrasting so deli- 

 ciously with the blue sky overhead, or such ponds of blue- 

 leaved Lotus lifting their tall white blossoms serenely to the 

 heavens ? From flower pictures of other lands we can gain 

 suggestions for the beautifying of our own grounds in quaint 

 new fashions that may add to their attractiveness. The artist 

 may reveal to us the value of a blossom alone or in mass, as 

 Mr. Parsons shows us the worth of the great single Pagony 

 against a buildmg. in his picture of the temple-steps at Haso- 

 dera, or the splendor of the groups of red Azaleas, and the broad 

 meadows full of purple Iris-blooms. One charming study 

 of color is to be found in his Chrysanthemum Show, where 

 the hues of the blossoms are echoed in the robes of the Japa- 

 nese visitors, whose rich dresses and sashes are of the tints of 

 the flowers themselves, so that the plants seem to have come 

 down from their shelves to go walking about in the shaded 

 light. 



The special merit of this beautiful collection of pictures 

 seems to be that nowhere is the color of the flower insisted 

 upon at the expense of its character, which is the secret of the 

 failure of many a flower-picture. Nor is this because Mr. Par- 

 sons shrinks from color, for, on the contrary, he revels in it ; 

 but because in his conception the blossom takes its proper 

 place in the scheme of nature. Emphatic always, but subor- 

 dinate to the greater landscape in which it plays its true part ; 

 either as a distinct and vivid foreground, or as a glowing mid- 

 dle distance, or as an integral part of an extended space in 

 which it is appropriately prominent, but even here is modified 

 in aggressiveness by its attendant foliage. Delicate and true 

 drawing is also an important element in the success of these 

 works of art, which bring to us on snowy winter days such an 

 outlook into eternal summer. One of these water-colors might 

 be set, framed like a window in the side of a room, so that one 

 might seem to be looking out forever upon the charming 

 scene, and thus have perpetual enjoyment of floating cloud or 

 gleaming river or distant hill, with dancing flowers in the fore- 

 ground to make a garden for us, no matter how sullen the 

 skies of our winter at the time. For it is the especial mission 

 of a flower-picture to perpetuate summer for us, to brighten 

 the cheerless winter gloom with sunshine and glow and hint of 

 sweetness. Without the icy winds may whistle, but within, 

 upon our walls, Roses may smile and A;^aleas flourish, while 

 the rich Chrysanthemum shall prolong the glory of autumn. 



Notes on the Forest Flora of Japan. — XIV. 



THE Aralia family has no representative in eastern 

 North America outside of the genus Aralia and only 

 one woody plant, Aralia spinosa, a small tree of the middle 

 and southern states. In Japan the family appears in no 

 less than eight genera. The Ivy of Europe reaches Japan, 

 where it is rather common in the south, although we did 



not meet with it north of the Hakone Mountains and the 

 region about Fugi-san. Helwingia, a genus with two 

 species of shrubs, remarkable in this family for the position 

 of the flowers which are produced on the upper surface of 

 the midribs of the leaves, is Japanese and Himalayan. In 

 japan Helwingia ranges to southern Yezo, where, in the 

 peninsula south of Volcano Bay, in common with a num- 

 ber of other plants, it finds its most northern home. 



In the flora of Japan, Fatsia is represented by the hand- 

 some evergreen plant, Fatsia (Aralia) Japonica, now well 

 known in our conservatories, an inhabitant of the extreme 

 southern part of the empire, although often cultivated in the 

 gardens of Tokyo, both in the open ground and in pots ; and 

 by Fatsia horrida, a low shrub with stout, well-armed stems, 

 large palmately lobed leaves and bright red fruit, which is 

 also common on the mountains of the north-west coast 

 region of North America, from Oregon to Sitka. In Japan 

 we found it growing under the dense shade of the Hemlock 

 forests on steep rocky slopes above Lake Umoto, in the 

 Nikko Mountains, at an elevation of five thousand feet 

 above the sea-level, and in Yezo. The third member of 

 the genus, Fatsia papyrifera, from the thick pith of whose 

 branches the Chinese rice-paper is made, and an inhabitant 

 of central and southern China and of Formosa, is frequently 

 seen in Tokyo gardens, as it is in those of the United States 

 and Europe. In Yezo is found a representative of the Man- 

 churian and Chinese genus Eleutherococcus, a shrub still 

 to be introduced into our gardens, and Panax repens, a del- 

 icate herb with trailing stems and bright red fruit, which 

 manages to live on mountain-slopes under the dense shade 

 of Bamboos, while Dendropanax, a tropical genus of trees 

 and shrubs of the New World, as well as of the Old, reaches 

 southern Japan with a single shrubby species, Dendropa- 

 nax Japonicum. 



Aralia is more multiplied in species in eastern America, 

 where six are known, than in Japan, whose flora contains 

 only two, although a third, the Ginseng (Aralia quinqui- 

 folia), a native of Manchuria, northern China, and 

 the United States, has been cultivated for centuries in 

 japan for the roots, which the Chinese esteem for medicine 

 and buy in large quantities, sometimes paying fabulous prices 

 for them, especially for the wild Manchurian roots which 

 are considered more valuable than those obtained from 

 North America or from plants cultivated in Japan, or in 

 Corea, where Ginseng-cultivation is one of the most im- 

 portant branches of agriculture. Curiously enough, this 

 North American and Chinese species was first made known 

 to the outside world by Koempfer's description of the plants 

 cultivated in Japan. 



Of the indigenous Aralias of Japan, Aralia cordata is an 

 herb with large pinnate leaves and long compound race- 

 mose panicles of white flowers, which are followed by 

 showy black fruit. In habit and general appearance it re- 

 sembles our North American Spikenard, Aralia racemosa, 

 but it is a larger and handsomer plant, and well worth a 

 place in the wild garden. In Japan Aralia cordata is often 

 cultivated in the neighborhood of houses for the young 

 shoots which, as well as the roots, are cooked and eaten. 

 The second Japanese Aralia only differs from our American 

 Aralia spinosa in its rather broader and more coarsely 

 serrate leaflets and in the character and amount of pubes- 

 cence which covers their lower surface. Aralia spinosa, 

 van canescens, is a common tree in Yezo and in all the low 

 mountain-region of northern and central Hondo. It usually 

 selects rather moist soil, and sometimes, under favorable 

 conditions, rises to the height of thirty or forty feet and 

 forms a straight, well-developed trunk. In Hondo large 

 plants are rare, probabl}^ owing to the fact that the forests 

 on the low and accessible mountain-slopes are frequently 

 cut off, but the shrubby covering of such hills is almost 

 always brightened in September by the great compound 

 clusters of the white flowers of the Aralia which rise above 

 it. The Japanese form does not appear to be much known 

 in gardens, although young plants have lately been raised 

 in the Arnold Arboretum from seed sent a few years ago 



