48 FOREST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



mental plant it is certainly inferior in every way to our native Flowering Dogwood, and in 

 this country at least it will probably never be much grown except as a botanical curiosity. 



The second arborescent Japanese Cornel, Cornus macrophylla, often known by its syno- 

 nym, Cornus brachypoda, is also an inhabitant of the Himalayan forests, where it is common 

 between 4,000 and 8,000 feet above the sea-level, and of China and Corea. It is one of the 

 most beautiful of the Cornels, and in size and habit the stateliest and most imposing member 

 of the genus. In Japan, trees fifty or sixty feet in height, with stout well-developed trunks 

 more than a foot in diameter, are not uncommon, and when such specimens rise above the 

 thick undergrowth of shrubs which in the mountain regions of central Japan often cover the 

 steep slopes which descend to the streams, they are splendid objects, with their long branches 

 standing at right angles with the stems, and forming distinct flat tiers of foliage, for the 

 leaves, like those of our American Cornus alternifolia, are crowded at the ends of short lateral 

 branchlets which grow nearly upright on the older branches, so that in looking down on one 

 of these trees only the upper surface of the leaves is seen. These are five to eight inches 

 long and three or four inches wide, dark green on the upper surface, but very pale, and some- 

 times nearly white, on the lower surface. The flowers and fruit resemble those of Cornus 

 alternifolia, although they are produced in wider and more open-branched clusters ; and, hke 

 those of this American species, they are borne on the ends of the lateral branchlets, and, 

 rising above the foliage, stud the upper side of the broad whorls of green. 



Cornus macrophylla is exceedingly common in all the mountain regions of Hondo, where 

 it sometimes ascends to 4,000 feet above the sea, and in Yezo, where it is scattered through 

 forests of deciduous trees, usually selecting situations where its roots can obtain an abundant 

 supply of moisture. This fine tree was introduced into the United States many years ago 

 through the Parsons' Nursery, but I believe has never flourished here. In the Arnold Arbo- 

 retum, where numerous attempts to cultivate it have been made, it has never lived more than 

 a few years at a time. Kaised from seed produced in the severe climate of Yezo, Cornus 

 macrophylla may, however, succeed in New England, where, if it grows as it does in Japan, it 

 will prove a good tree to associate with our native plants. 



Cornus officinalis, as it was first described from plants found in Japanese gardens, has 

 usually been considered a native of that country. But, although it has been cultivated in 

 Japan for many centuries on account of its supposed medical virtues, it is probably Corean. 

 It may be considered, perhaps, a mere variety of the European and Asiatic Cornelian Cherry, 

 Cornus Mas, from which the Corean tree is best distinguished by the tufts of rusty brown 

 hairs which occupy the axils of the veins on the lower surface of the leaves. In the Botanic 

 Garden in Tokyo, which includes the site of a physic-garden established in the early days of 

 the Tokugawa dynasty, there is a group of trees of Cornus officinalis, which appear to have 

 attained a great age ; they are bushy plants, perhaps thirty feet tall, with bent and twisted 

 half-decayed trunks, and contorted branches, which form broad thick round heads, and in 

 October were loaded with the bright Cherry-like fruit. 



The Honeysuckle family is represented in Japan by seven genera and a large number of 

 species, especiaUy of Viburnum ; but none of them can be considered trees, although Diervilla 

 Japonica is occasionally ahnost arborescent in size and habit. The Japanese Viburnums are 



