August i6, 1893.] 



Garden and Forest. 



343 



Hakkoda, in the extreme northern part of Hondo, that we 

 saw this fine tree to advantage. On the slopes of this 

 mountain it is exceedingly common at elevations of from 

 twenty-five hundred to four thousand feet above the sea, 

 and, next to the Beech, is the largest deciduous tree of the 

 region, often rising to a height of eighty feet, and produc- 

 ing trunks two and a half feet in diameter. It is a broad- 

 topped tree, with stout branches which spread nearly at 

 right angles to the stem, and form a dense leafy crown. In 

 winter the Japanese Pterocarya may be readily recognized 

 by its orange-colored branchlets, thickly beset with small 

 light-colored lenticels, and by the stout acute buds, three- 

 quarters of an inch long, covered with apiculate black 

 puberulous scales conspicuously marked with clusters of 

 pale hairs. The leaves are unequally pinnate, eight or ten 

 inches long and four to six inches broad, with stout hairy 

 petioles, and six or seven pairs of lateral leaflets, which are 

 acute, unequally rounded at the base, long-pointed, finely 

 serrate, yellowish green, and covered on the lower surface 

 of the midribs with pale or rusty brown pubescence. In 

 the first days of October, when the fruit was fully ripe and 

 just ready to drop, the leaves were beginning to turn yel- 

 low ; a month later, in the forest above Lake Umoto, the 

 trees vi^ere bare of foliage. A specimen of the wood of 

 Pterocarya rhoifolia, for which I am indebted to the officers 

 of the Forestry Department at Aomori, is white, soft, very 

 light and straight-grained, with bands of open ducts mark- 

 ing the layers of annual growth ; it might be mistaken at 

 the first glance for a piece of our American white pine. 



The other Japanese member of the Walnut family, Platy- 

 carya strobilacea, we only saw in the Tokyo Botanic Gar- 

 den, where there is a tree fifteen or twenty feet high, which 

 last year was covered with the curious cone-like heads of 

 fruit which distinguish this genus. In the mountain-regions 

 of Kyushu it is said to become a large and stately tree. 

 Platycarya is occasionally cultivated in the botanic gardens 

 of southern Europe, but I am not aware of its growing in 

 any part of the United States. 



Myrica Gale, in a distinct pubescent form, is as com- 

 mon in low marshy ground in Yezo as it is in the same 

 latitude in North America, and a second species of Myrica, 

 akin to our Bayberry, inhabits the sandy coast, although 

 it does not range far north of the thirty-fifth parallel. This 

 is the handsome evergreen Myrica rubra, a small shapely 

 tree, now well known in California gardens and occasion- 

 ally cultivated in the southern Atlantic states. 



In Japan, as in all other temperate northern lands, the 

 Cupuliferse abound, and the deciduous forests of the north- 

 ern islands are principally composed of Oaks, Beeches, 

 Hornbeams, Alders and Birches. The mountain-forests of 

 Hondo and those of Yezo contain many Birch-trees, which 

 are also important elements of the forest in all northern 

 and north eastern Asia. The Old World White Birch, Betula 

 alba, in at least three of its forms, is common in central 

 Yezo, and we saw. also a number of trees of the typical 

 form on the plains between Chuzenji and Umoto, in the 

 Nikko Mountains. The most distinct of the Japanese forms 

 of Betula alba is that which botanists call var. Tauschii, 

 and which is distributed from southern Siberia through the 

 Amour country to Yezo, where it is a slender tree, some- 

 times eighty feet in height; it is distinguished by its larger 

 and rather thicker leaves, which are of a deeper and more 

 lustrous green on the-upper surface than those of the other 

 forms of the White Birch with which it is associated. It is 

 certainly worth a place in our plantations. The variety 

 verrucosa, well distinguished by the warts which beset the 

 young branches, appears to be confined in Japan to Yezo, 

 where, so far as we were able to observe, it is an exceed- 

 ingly rare plant. 



In the forests of Yezo, too, we saw, for the first time, 

 Betula Ma.'cimowicziana. This is certainly one of the 

 handsomest trees in Japan, and one of the most distinct and 

 beautiful of the Birches; and its introduction into our plan- 

 tations was alone well worth the journey to Japan. In Yezo, 

 Betula Maximowicziana is a shapely tree, eighty or ninety 



feet in height, with a trunk two or three feet in diameter, 

 covered with pale smooth orange-colored bark. Toward 

 the base of old individuals the bark becomes thick and is 

 ashy gray, separating into long narrow scales. The 

 branchlets are stout, covered with dark red-brown bark and 

 marked by many pale lenticels. The leaves, however, are 

 the most distinct feature of this tree ; in size they are not 

 equaled by those of any other Birch-tree, and as they flut- 

 ter on their long slender stalks they offer a spectacle which 

 can be compared with that which is afforded by our sil- 

 ver-leaved Linden waving its branches before some Hem- 

 lock-covered hill of the southern Alleghany Mountains. 

 The leaves of Betula Maximowicziana are broadly ovate, 

 cordate at the base, coarsely and doubly serrate, very thin 

 and membranaceous, dark green and lustrous on the upper 

 surface, pale yellow-green on the lower, four to six inches 

 long and four or four and a half inches broad. The flowers 

 and fruit I have not seen. The male catkins in September 

 are an inch and a half long, very slender, with bracts 

 rounded and apiculate at the apex. From the seeds, for 

 which I am indebted to the Forestry officials of Hokkaido, 

 a large number of seedlings of this fine tree have been 

 raised in the Arboretum. Specimens collected in the Nikko 

 Mountains by Meyer indicate that it is an inhabitant of 

 Hondo, where, however, we did not see it. From Yezo it 

 ranges northward through Saghalin into Manchuria. The 

 tough thin bark is used by the Ainos for many domestic pur- 

 poses. 



The most common Birch of the high mountain-forests 

 of Hondo is Betula Ermani, a handsome species now well 

 known in European and American collections, into which 

 it has been introduced through the agency of the St. Peters- 

 burg Botanic Garden. In Hondo, where it is found scat- 

 tered through the coniferous forests, it is common at eleva- 

 tions of from four to six thousand feet above the sea, and 

 is conspicuous from the white bark of the trunk and the 

 bright orange-colored bark of the principal branches. From 

 the different forms of the White Birch this species can be 

 readily distinguished in the herbarium by the long spath- 

 ulate middle lobe of the bract of the female flower; in the 

 forests the color of the bark of the branches well distin- 

 guishes it. 



On the shores of Lake Umoto we found a single indi- 

 vidual of a black-barked Birch-tree, much like our Amer- 

 ican Betula lenta, with the same cherry-like flavor in the 

 bark of the branchlets. From Betula lenta it differed in its 

 larger, more obtuse and paler winter buds, in the more 

 prominent midribs and veins of the leaves covered on their 

 lower surface with silky pubescence, and in the shorter 

 cones of fruit, the lateral lobes of the bracts being narrow 

 and acute, instead of broad and rounded, as in the Amer- 

 ican species. With considerable hesitation I have referred 

 this tree to the Betula serra of Siebold & Zuccarini. The 

 seedling plants which have been raised in the Arboretum 

 will, perhaps, throw some light upon its true position. 

 Betula ulmifolia, B. Bhojpattra and B. corylifolia, included 

 in the flora of Japan, we did not see. 



In Japan Alders are more numerous in species, and grow 

 to a much larger size than in eastern America. Alnus in- 

 cana, which is only a shrub here, in Japan becomes in 

 some of its forms a stately tree fifty or sixty feet in height, 

 forming trunks often two feet in diameter. Trees of this 

 size of the varieties glauca and hirsuta, the latter well 

 characterized by the pale pubescence which covers the lower 

 surface of the leaves, are common in Yezo, where they are 

 found on low slopes in moist rich ground, but not often 

 close to the banks of streams, which are usually occupied 

 by Alnus Japonica. This is the largest and most beautiful 

 of the Japanese Alders. It is a pyramidal tree, often sixty 

 to eighty feet tall, well furnished to the ground with 

 branches clothed with large dark green lustrous leaves. 

 This species has been confounded with the rare North 

 American Alnus maritima (see figure 47, on p. 269 of vol. 

 iv. of this journal), from which it differs in habit and in 

 ..he size and color of the leaves. The fruit of the two spe- 



