38 FOREST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



by Maximowicz to grow in several of the mountain provinces ; it also inhabits Saghalin, Corea, 

 and eastern Manchuria, where it was discovered. 



The common Prunus Padus of Europe and northern Asia reaches northern and central 

 Yezo, where it is not rare in low ground in the neighborhood of streams, and where it grows 

 to a considerable size. A much more common tree in Yezo and in the elevated forests of 

 Hondo is Prunus Ssiori, another Bird Cherry, always easily distinguished by its pale, nearly 

 white bark. It is a handsome glabrous tree with oblong membranaceous leaves and long 

 graceful racemes of small flowers, and is well worth introducing into our plantations as an 

 ornamental plant. It grows also in Saghalin, where it was discovered by Schmidt, in Man- 

 churia, and in western China. The wood of Prunus Ssiori is very hard and close-grained, 

 and is used by the Ainos for numerous domestic purposes. 



Prunus Grayana, the third Japanese Bird Cherry, is common in all the mountain forests 

 of Hondo, and extends across the straits of Tsugaru into southern Yezo. It is a small tree, 

 twenty to thirty feet high, with a slender trunk, ample membranaceous long-pointed setaceo- 

 serrate leaves, biglandular at the base, but without glands on the petioles, a peculiarity which 

 best distinguishes this species from Prunus Padus, although the hair-like teeth of the leaves 

 are characteristic and apparently constant. 



Of true Plums there are in the flora of eastern America no less than nine or ten indige- 

 nous species, of which six are considered trees ; in some parts of the country these plants are 

 exceedingly common, and in early spring enliven forest glades, or the seacoast of the north 

 with their profuse and fragrant flowers ; but Japan apparently possesses no indigenous Plum- 

 tree, and although Plums are sometimes cultivated in the neighborhood of Japanese houses, 

 they are by no means common, and the fruit which is offered for sale in the markets is not 

 abundant or of good quality. 



In recent years a good deal has been heard in this country of Japanese Plums, which are 

 now successfully cultivated in the southern states. Some of these varieties have possibly been 

 made in Japanese gardens, but the original stock from which they have all been derived is 

 probably some south China or Indian species of doubtful identity — perhaps, as has been 

 suggested, the Prunus triflora of Roxburgh, an obscure plant, which is possibly a form of 

 Prunus domestica. But the parentage of the so-called Japanese Plums will not be satisfacto- 

 rily settled until competent botanists have explored western and southwestern China, where 

 must be solved many of the problems which relate to the origin and geographical distribution 

 of many cultivated plants. 



The Japanese form of the Old World Mountain Ash, Pyrus aucuparia, is a common tree in 

 Yezo and on all the high mountain ranges of Hondo, where it is sometimes twenty or thirty 

 feet in height, and always conspicuous in autumn from the brilliant orange and scarlet colors 

 of the foliage. This peculiarity will give to this tree a horticultural value, although, except 

 in its more glabrous buds, it does not vary in any marked way from the Mountain Ash of 

 Europe and northern Asia. 



Pyrus sambucifolia, which is much like the American plant, although described as a small 

 shrub, is said to be abundant in northern and eastern Yezo and on the Kurile Islands. I only 

 saw it in the Botanic Garden at Sapporo, where Professor Miyabe has established a remarkable 



