274 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 279. 



may therefore be expected to be as hardy as Cercidiphyl- 

 lum, Syringa Japonica, Magnolia Kobus or any of the other 

 Yezo trees, with which it grows and which flourish here in 

 New England. Styrax Obassia, as it appears in Yezo and 

 on the mountains of central Hondo, where it is common 

 between 3,500 and 4,000 feet above the sea, is a tree twenty 

 to thirty feet in height, with a slender straight stem, long 

 and graceful branches well clothed with nearly circular 

 leaves dark green on the upper surface, pale on the lower, 

 and often more than six inches across. The white, bell- 

 shaped flowers, nearly an inch in length, borne in long 

 drooping racemes, are produced in the greatest profusion 

 and are very beautful. The second species, Styrax Ja- 

 ponica, is a common plant in the mountain-forests of 

 Hondo and in southern Yezo, and is a shrub or occasion- 

 ally a small tree twenty to thirty feet high. It is now well 

 known in American and European gardens. 



From the Olive family we miss, in Japan, Forestiera, an 

 exclusively American genus, and Cliionanthus, which is 

 eastern American and Chinese. Fraxinus and Osmanthus 

 are common to the floras of Japan and eastern America, 

 and in Japan, Ligustrum and Syringa, both Old World 

 genera, are represented. In eastern America, Fraxinus ap- 

 pears in nine or ten species ; in Japan there are probably 

 not more than two indigenous species, and only Fraxinus 

 longicuspis is endemic. This is a tree of the Ornus section, 

 which is rather common in the elevated Hemlock-forests 

 of Hondo, and ranges northward into Yezo. It is a slender 

 tree twenty to thirty feet in height, with thin, rigid, ashy 

 gray branchlets, black buds, and leaves with five-stalked, 

 ovate acute, finely or coarsely serrate leaflets, which in the 

 autumn are conspicuous from the deep purple color to 

 which they change. I do not feel at all sure that this spe- 

 cies, of which we were unable to obtain seeds, is in culti- 

 vation, although the name is common in catalogues, as 

 there is still great confusion with regard to the Asiatic 

 Ashes found in gardens. 



Fraxinus Manchurica, which is also common in Man- 

 churia, Saghalin and Corea, is a noble tree in Yezo, where it 

 is exceedingly abundant in low ground near the borders of 

 swamps and streams, and where it often rises to the height 

 of a hundred feet and forms tall straight stems three or four 

 feet in diameter ; its stout orange-colored branchlets, large 

 black buds, ample leaves, with lanceolate acute, coarsely 

 serrate leaflets, and great clusters of broad-winged fruit, 

 well distinguish this species, which is certainly one of the 

 noblest of all the Ashes and one of the most valuable tim- 

 ber-trees of eastern Asia. For many years Fraxinus Man- 

 churica has inhabited the Arnold Arboretum, where it is 

 hardy and where it promises to grow to a good size. An- 

 other Ash-tree commonly cultivated along the borders of 

 Rice-fields near Tokyo is referred by the Japanese botanists 

 to the Fraxinus pubinervis of Blume. This has every ap- 

 pearance of being an introduced tree in Japan ; but I was 

 unable to obtain fruit or any satisfactory information with 

 regard to it. 



Syringa Japonica is rather common in the deciduous for- 

 ests on the hills of central Yezo, and I saw it occasionally 

 on the high mountains of Hondo. In its native country, 

 the Japanese Lilac, when fully grown, is an unshapely 

 straggling tree, twenty-five to thirty feet in height, with a 

 trunk rarely twelve or eighteen inches in diameter, and 

 does not display the beauty of foliage or the compact hand- 

 some habit which we associate with this plant in our New 

 England gardens, where it is far more beautiful than in its 

 native forests. 



Osmanthus Aquifolium, or, as it is more commonly called 

 in gardens, Osmanthus ilicifolium, is usually supposed to 

 be a Japanese tree. I saw it in city gardens, and in greater 

 perfection in the mountain-region of central Hondo, where 

 it is often planted near dwellings and by the road-side, and 

 where it sometimes grows to the height of thirty feet and 

 makes a trunk a foot or more in diameter and a broad, com- 

 pact round head, loaded in October with fragrant flowers. 

 But where I saw it, it had evidently been planted, and if it 



is a Japanese species, which is doubtful, it is only indige- 

 nous in the extreme south. 



Ligustrum is poorly represented in Japan, and of the 

 three species found within the borders of the empire only 

 the evergreen Ligustrum Japonicum of the south becomes 

 a tree. Of the other species, Ligustrum medium is much 

 more common than Ligustrum Ibota ; at the north it is 

 foimd in moist low forests, but farther south ascends to 

 high elevations, where, in central Japan, Ligustrum Ibota 

 is also found. 



In the remaining Gamopetalous orders, of trees Japan 

 possesses only Ehretia acuminata, which inhabits the 

 Luchu Islands, and possibly reaches the southern shores 

 of Kyushu, a small tree, which I saw only in the Botanic 

 Garden of Tokyo, and the beautiful Clerodendron trichoto- 

 mum, which in late summer enlivens the banks of streams 

 with its great masses of tropical foliage and brilliant flow- 

 ers, and in Yezo often attains to the size and habit of a 

 small tree. C. S, S. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Ostrowskia magnifica. 



OSTROWSKIA MAGNIFICA can now hardly be called 

 a rare plant, although it is not common here in cul- 

 tivation. For various reasons it does not yet seem to have 

 been widely disseminated, though no hardy plant intro- 

 duced in recent years has excited more interest and raised 

 higher expectations among gardeners. The first offering 

 of seeds of this plant failed to germinate, and it is only 

 lately that good strong roots have been generally availa- 

 ble, so that few have had the opportunity to flower the 

 plants. The Dutch bulb-growers now offer strong roots, 

 and stock may be obtained of them at a moderate price. 



As will be seen by the illustration (page 276), this is a 

 most remarkable campanulate flower, being nearly five 

 inches in diameter, with a depth of nearly four inches. 

 The color of the flower illustrated was a very light laven- 

 der or mauve, almost white, with deeper veinings. The 

 surface of the corolla is somewhat irregular, and re- 

 flects numerous high lights in a way that adds to its 

 attractiveness. Altogether it is a remarkably graceful 

 and handsome flower. It has been compared to a mag- 

 nified Platycodon, but that well-known flower is very 

 commonplace in comparison. The leaves are light green, 

 thin in texture, like those of Lettuce, and are borne in whorls 

 on stems about three feet high. The juice is milky, 



Herr Max Leichtlin, in Garden and Forest, vol. i., p. 406, 

 states that this plant was flowered at Baden-Baden in 1887, 

 where it is as hardy as a weed. It prefers a sandy, deeply 

 worked soil, as it has thick brittle roots some two feet long. 

 It was first discovered by Dr. A. Regel in eastern Bokhara, 

 and described in 1884. My plant has passed two winters 

 safely, and has not appeared above ground until all dan- 

 gers from spring frosts are over. It is four years old, now 

 flowering for the first time. As it dies down to the roots 

 soon after flowering, it should have a position where it is 

 not likely to be disturbed by careless digging, for though 

 it is propagated by division of the roots, it is not a plant 

 which should be disturbed. My plant is in a position 

 where it receives little moisture in late summer, but I do 



not know that this precaution is necessary. , ,,. „ 

 Elizabeth. N.J. J.N.Gerard. . 



New Plants from Asia Minor. 



WE quote below extracts from an interesting letter to 

 the London Garden, by Mr. Edward Whittall, to 

 whom lovers of flowers, and especially of spring.flow ers, are 

 so much indebted for many introductions of hardy plants. 

 The extracts give a summary of the results of his work in 

 collecting last year, with a promise of future labors in the 

 same direction, which we hope may be as successful as 

 his former ones : 



Amongforms of Anemone blandaa fineall blueonefrom the 

 mountains overlooking the Straits of Samos was a pleasant 



