404 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 292. 



used in Japan as an article of human food than in Europe, 

 but I have never seen chestnuts offered in such quantities 

 in the markets of any American or European city as in 

 those of Tokyo and other Japanese towns. The Chestnut- 

 trees which we saw had the appearance of growing spon- 

 taneously ; and we saw nothing like an orchard of these 

 trees, which, so far as we were able to observe,, are not 

 planted near dwellings or temples or for shade. In Japan 

 the Chestnut-tree grows as far north in Yezo as we went, 

 and is scattered through the mountain-forests of Hondo, 

 where it is most abundant at elevations of about 2,500 feet 

 above the ocean, growing on steep slopes in small open 

 groves or mixed with trees of other kinds. We saw no 

 evidences that the Chestnut-tree grows in Japan to the no- 

 ble dimensions it sometimes reaches in Europe and on the 

 slopes of the southern Alleghany Mountains, and speci- 

 mens more than thirty feet high, with trunks more than a 

 foot in diameter, were rare in that part of the country 

 which we visited. The Japanese Chestnut appears to be 

 more precocious than the American tree, and saplings ten 

 or twelve feet high only are often covered with fruit. The 

 large-fruited northern form from the neighborhood of 

 Aomori should be brought to this country, as it may be 

 expected to support a greater degree of cold than the 

 French or Kobe Marrons, and, therefore, to be available for 

 cultivation much farther north here. By its introduction it 

 is possible that marron-growing may become a profitable 

 industry in states with climates as severe as those of Wis- 

 consin, Michigan and New England. 



As in eastern North America and in Europe, the Beech 

 in Japan is one of the noblest trees of the forest ; its range 

 is similar to that of the Horse-chestnut, in the north appear- 

 ing on the shores of Volcano Bay in Yezo only a few feet 

 above the level of the ocean, and extending southward 

 along the mountains of the other islands. It is, perhaps, 

 the commonest deciduous tree of the mountains of Hondo, 

 where, between 3,000 and 4,000 feet, or toward the upper 

 limits of the deciduous forest, it sometimes covers wide 

 areas, nearly to the exclusion of other trees, or sometimes 

 grows mixed with Oaks, Chestnuts, and occasional Firs 

 and Spruces. Trees eighty or ninety feet tall, with trunks 

 more than three feet in diameter, are not uncommon. The 

 fact that Beech-wood is little used by the Japanese, and the 

 comparatively inaccessible situations where it is mostly 

 found, account, no doubt, for the abundance of this tree in 

 Japan and the existence of so many large individuals. 

 This, the Asiatic form of the European Fagus sylvatica, is 

 hardly to be distinguished from the European tree, which 

 it resembles in every essential character. The variety Sie- 

 boldii (the Fagus Sieboldii of Endlicher) I looked for in 

 vain, and I hazard the opinion that it will turn out to be a 

 tree of the herbarium and not of the forest. 



I can throw no light upon the Japanese Willows which 

 abound at the north in numerous, continental, mostly 

 shrubby, forms ; they require more careful investigation 

 than it was possible to give them during our hurried au- 

 tumnal visit, when the flowers and fruit had disappeared. 

 On the streets of Europeanized Tokyo, Willows are now 

 chiefly planted as shade-trees ; they are the Weeping Wil- 

 low (Salix Babylonica), an inhabitant of China and a favor- 

 ite with the Japanese, and Salix erioicarpa of Franchet & 

 Savatier, a species which we saw growing by river-banks 

 on the Nagascendo, and which looks too much like Salix 

 alba to be distinct from that species which might be ex- 

 pected to reach Japan. But the handsomest Willow we saw 

 in Japan, and certainly one of the most beautiful of all 

 Willows, is Salix subfragilis, which appears to be confined 

 to Japan, where it was discovered in the neighborhood of 

 Hakodate by Charles Wright. We were first struck by the 

 beauty of this tree between Nikko and Lake Chuzenji, 

 where there are a few specimens on the banks of the moun- 

 tain torrent, which the road follows in ascending the 

 mountains. It was at Sapparo, however, that this Willow 

 appeared in its greatest beauty ; here on the banks of 

 streams Salix subtragilis forms trees at least fifty feet in 



height, with short stout trunks three or four feet in diame- 

 ter, covered with thick, deeply furrowed bark, and stout 

 branches which spread nearly at right angles, like those of 

 an old pasture Oak. The leaves are oblong, acute, rounded 

 at the base and coarsely crenulate-serrate ; they are borne 

 on stems an inch and a half long and are six or seven inches 

 long, two or two and a half inches broad, dark green and 

 lustrous on the upper surface and silvery white on the 

 lower ; the stipules are foliaceous, obliquely rounded, and 

 rather more than half an inch across. This Willow ap- 

 pears to be one of the most desirable trees to introduce into 

 our collections, and the only Japanese Willow we saw of 

 real value, from a horticultural point of view. 



Populus is poorly represented in Japan ; the two species 

 which are found in the empire are both of Old World 

 types, and there is nothing which corresponds to the 

 Cottonwoods, which in all the central and western regions 

 of this continent line the river-banks. The Aspen of 

 Europe appears in one of its forms in Japan (Populus 

 tremula, var. villosa), looking, however, so distinct from 

 the Aspen of Europe and continental Asia that it is hard 

 to believe that it is not specifically distinct ; it is the Popu- 

 lus Sieboldii of Miquel, the oldest name. This tree is not 

 rare in southern Yezo, where it grows to the height of 

 twenty or thirty feet, springing up in considerable num- 

 bers on dry, gravelly soil. We saw it in the greatest per- 

 fection on the plains south of Mori, on Volcano Bay, and 

 less commonly on the mountains near Aomori in Hondo. 

 Of the second species, the Populus suaveolens of Fisher, 

 we encountered a few individuals in southern Yezo, where 

 it is probably near the southern limit of its range, it being 

 a northern tree of Saghalin and the Amour country. It is 

 evidently only a form of the Balsam Poplar, which is found 

 in all northern regions, where, especially in some parts of 

 British America, it constitutes by far the largest part of the 

 forest-growth. In Japan the Balsam Poplar grows to an 

 immense size, and some individuals which we saw were 

 certainly eighty and, perhaps, a hundred feet tall, with 

 long trunks five or six feet in diameter, rising like sentinels 

 high above the low, mostly second-growth, forests of south- 

 ern Hokkaido. C. S. S. 



New or Little-known Plants. 



Inula grandifllora. 



THIS handsome and hardy herbaceous plant, although 

 known to botanists for nearly a century, appears to 

 be extremely rare in gardens ; it has found its way into 

 those of the United States through the agency of Herr Max 

 Leichtlin, who sent seeds to Professor Sargent several years 

 ago. 



Inula grandiflora, in cultivation here, grows to a height 

 of eighteen to twenty-four inches ; the stout stems are 

 well clothed with large, thick elliptical-oblong dark green 

 leaves, and late in June are crowned by solitary flowers 

 five inches across, vi^ith narrow dark orange-colored rays. 

 The illustration on page 406 of this issue displays the form 

 and size of the flower ; it is from a photograph made by 

 Mr. James M. Codman, of Brookline, Massachusetts. 



Inula grandiflora is an important addition to our available 

 early-summer flowering hardy perennials ; it is very hardy. 

 The habit of the plant, which is bold without being coarse, 

 is good; the flowers are large and of an unusual color, and 

 they appear at the season of the year when few yellow- 

 flowered Compositse are in bloom. 



It is a native of the alpine regions of the Caucasus. 



Cultural Department. 



Apples in Kansas. 



THE great Wellhouse Orchard in Kansas, with its hun- 

 dred and forty thousand Apple-trees, covering more 

 than twelve hundred acres, has now for some years been a 

 financial success, thanks to the practical skill of its pro- 

 prietors. Our readers will be glad to hear some account of 



