3^4 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 288. 



sesses, also, a single species which extends to the Orient, 

 where a second species is found. The forests which 

 cover the Himalayas contain two species ; at least two or 

 three others are found in the Chinese empire ; and to the 

 flora of Japan six species are credited. One of the Japa- 

 nese species, however, Carpinus erosaof Blume, is a doubt- 

 ful plant ; another, the Carpinus Tschnoskii of Maximowicz, 

 from the Hakone Mountains and the region of Fugi-san, I 

 have never seen ; and a third, Carpinus Yedonsis, a small 

 tree cultivated in gardens in the neighborhood of Tokyo, 

 is, perhaps, like many of the plants cultivated by the Japa- 

 nese, a native of central Asia. Three species are certainly 

 indigenous to the Japanese soil. 



Carpinus laxiflora resembles, in the character of the bark, 

 the size and shape of the leaves, and in the structure of the 

 flowers, the European and American Hornbeams. It is a 

 graceful tree, occasionally fifty feet in height, with a trunk 

 eighteen to tw^enty inches in diameter, covered with smooth 

 pale, sometimes almost white, bark, and slender branches. 

 The leaves are ovate or ovate-elliptical, rounded or subcor- 

 date at the base, contracted at the apex into long slender 

 points, and doubly serrate; they are dark green above, pale 

 yellow-green below, three to four inches long, an inch to 

 an inch and a half broad, prominently many-veined, and 

 in the autumn turn yellow or red and yellow. The fruit is 

 produced in lax hairy catkins four or five inches long, with 

 spreading, oblique, prominently veined bracts, which are 

 obscurely lobed, more or less enfolded at the base around 

 the fruit, and nearly an inch long. This fine tree is com- 

 mon in all the mountain-forests of Hondo, where it is most 

 abundant at elevations between two and three thousand 

 feet above the sea ; in Yezo it reaches the southern shores 

 of Volcano Bay, where, near the town of Mori, it is com- 

 mon in the Oak forests, and grows to its largest size. 



The other Japanese species of Carpinus differ from Car- 

 pinus laxiflora and from the American and European spe- 

 cies in their furrowed scaly bark, in the stalked bract of the 

 male flower, in the closely imbricated bracts of the fruiting 

 catkins, which look like the fruit of the Hop-vine, and in 

 the form of these bracts, which are furnished at the base 

 with a lobe which covers the fruit and is more or less 

 enclosed by the enfolding of the opposite side of the bract. 

 On account of these differences these two trees are some- 

 times referred to the genus Distigocarpus, founded by Sie- 

 bold and Zuccarini to receive their Distigocarpus Carpinus. 



The figure on page 365 of this issue shows flowering and 

 fruiting branches of this tree, a staminate flower, and a 

 bract of the fruiting catkin. Botanists now pretty gen- 

 erally agree that the characters upon which Distigocarpus 

 was founded are not of sufficient importance to justify its 

 separation from Carpinus ; and Distigocarpus Carpinus, if 

 the oldest specific name is used, becomes Carpinus Carpi- 

 nus. By Blume, who first united Distigocarpus with Car- 

 pinus, it was called Carpinus Japonica, the name under 

 which it has appeared in all recent works on the Japanese 

 flora. It is a tree forty to fifty feet in height, with a trunk 

 often twelve to eighteen inches in diameter, and wide- 

 spreading branches which form a broad handsome head. 

 The branches are slender, terete, coated at first with long 

 pale hairs, and later are covered with dark red-brown bark 

 often marked with oblong pale lenticels. The winter-buds 

 are half an inch long, acute, and covered with many imbri- 

 cated thin, light brown, papery scales ; with the exception 

 of those of the outer ranks they are accrescent on the grow- 

 ing shoots, and at maturity are nearly an inch long, and 

 hairy on the margins. The leaves are ovate, long-pointed, 

 slightly and usually obliquely cordate at the base, coarsely 

 and doubly serrate, thick and firm, dark green on the upper 

 surface, paler on the lower, three or fcjur inches long and 

 about an inch and a half wide, with stout midribs and many 

 straight prominent veins slightly hairy below, and deeply 

 impressed above. The stipules are linear, acute, scarious, 

 an inch long, and covered with pale hairs. The male in- 

 florescence is an inch long, with stalked lanceolate-acute 

 bracts half an inch long, and more or less ciliate on the 



margins. The female inflorescence is two-thirds of an inch 

 long, and is raised on a slender stem coated, like the bracts 

 which subtend the ovaries, with thick white tomentum ; 

 the outer bracts are acute, scarious, a quarter of an inch 

 long,, and early deciduous ; the inner bracts are oblique, 

 coarsely serrate toward the apex, conspicuously many- 

 ribbed, and furnished at the base with a minute ovate ser- 

 rate lobe which covers the ovary. Before the fruit ripens 

 these inner bracts enlarge until they are two-thirds of an 

 inch long and one-third of an inch broad, and are closely 

 imbricated into a cone-like catkin which resembles in shape, 

 color and texture that of our American Hop Hornbeam ; it 

 is, however, often two or two gnd a half inches long. The 

 nutlet is slightly flattened, with about ten straight promi- 

 nent ridges extending from one end to the other. 



Carpinus Carpinus is common in the Hakone and Nikko 

 mountains between two and three thousand feet elevation 

 above the sea ; it apparently does not range very far north 

 in Hondo or reach the island .of Yezo. This interesting and 

 beautiful tree, which is remarkable among Hornbeams in 

 the character of the bark and in the female inflorescence, 

 appears to be perfectly hardy in New England. For a 

 number of years it has inhabited the Arnold Arboretum, 

 and during the last two seasons has produced flowers and 

 fruit here. In its young state it makes a handsome, com- 

 pact, pyramidal, bushy and very distinct-looking tree. 



But the most beautiful of the Hornbeams of Japan, as it 

 appears in the forests of Yezo, is Carpinus cordata, which 

 often attains the height of forty feet, with a stout trunk 

 sometimes eighteen inches in diameter, covered with 

 dark, deeply furrr.owed scaly bark. The stout branchlets 

 are orange color, or, when they are three or four years old, 

 light brown, and are covered with large oblong pale lenti- 

 cels. This species is remarkable in the size of its winter 

 buds, which are fully grown by midsummer, and some- 

 times nearly an inch long, and are acute, and covered with 

 light chestnut-brown papery scales. The leaves are thin, 

 broadly ovate, pointed, deeply cordate, doubly serrate, six 

 or seven inches long and three or four inches broad ; they 

 are light green on both surfaces, although rather lighter- 

 colored on the lower, with conspicuous yellow midribs and 

 veins slightly hairy below and impressed above. The cat- 

 kins of fruit are often five or six inches long and an inch 

 and a half wide, with broadly ovate, remotely serrate 

 bracts ; their basal lobe is proportionately much larger than 

 that of the last species, and is sometimes a third of the 

 length of the bract, to which it is often united along nearly 

 its entire length, while in Carpinus Carpinus the lobe is 

 only attached at the base. 



This is the only species of central Yezo, where it is one 

 of the common forest-trees, growing with Oaks, Magnolias, 

 Ashes, Walnuts, Acanthopanax, Birches, etc.; it also grows 

 in Hondo at high elevations, although it is here much less 

 common than farther north. This fine tree is apparently 

 still unknown in American and European gardens ; it is 

 one of the largest of the Hornbeams, and certainly one of 

 the most distinct and beautiful of them all. As it grows in 

 its native forests with a number of trees which flourish here 

 in New England, it may be expected to grace our planta- 

 tions with its stately habit, large leaves and long clusters of 

 fruit. An abundant supply of the seeds, with those of 

 Betula Maximowicziana, was the best harvest we secured 

 in Yezo. C. S. S. 



Foreign Correspondence. 



Notes on Water-lilies. 



IT may be "sending coals to Newcastle" for me to 

 write about aquatic plants for American readers, 

 but I am specially interested in Nymphseas and their 

 relatives of the pond, and when I learn from Mr. Goldring 

 and others who have been to America, as well as from the 

 numerous interesting notes in Garden and Forest, that 

 aquatic plants are greatly in favor in the United States, I 



