50 ■ FOREST FLORA OF JAPAN. 



deciduous, and in the autumn, before falling, turn clear light yellow. The flowers are 

 campanulate, pure white, and are borne on slender stalks in many-flowered drooping racemose 

 panicles. By Japanese botanists it is spoken of as one of the most beautiful flowering trees 

 in Japan, and we considered ourselves fortunate in securing a supply of ripe seed, for this 

 species is still very rare in cultivation. There is but one other Japanese plant of the Heath 

 family which can pass as a tree ; this is the handsome Clethra canescens, or, as it is more 

 generally known in Japan, at least, Clethra barbinervis, a more recent name. It is a beautiful 

 small tree, occasionally twenty-five or thirty feet in height, with a slender trunk, a narrow 

 oblong head, long-stalked obovate pointed leaves, four to six inches in length, and very dark 

 green on the upper surface, and pale on the lower surface with hoary pubescence, which also 

 covers the branches of the inflorescence and the outer surface of the calyx of the flowers. 

 These are white, and are produced in slender upright terminal panicled racemes six to twelve 

 inches long, and open in succession during several weeks in August and September. In 

 southern Yezo Clethra canescens grows nearly down to the sea-level, and on the mountains of 

 the southern islands ; in central Hondo, where it is a common forest-plant, growing usually 

 near the borders of streams and lakes, it reaches an elevation of over 5,000 feet, so that there 

 is reason to believe that this fine species will thrive in our climate if plants are raised from 

 seed produced at high elevations, although up to the present time those which have been sent 

 to the Arnold Arboretum have never been very satisfactory. Clethra canescens grows, not 

 only in Japan, but in China, Java, the Philippines, and Celebes. 



Although we have learned to look upon Japan as the home of the Persimmon, which is 

 intimately associated with the expression of modern Japanese art, it is doubtful if either of 

 the species of Diospyros commonly encountered in that country is really indigenous in the 

 empire, where they were both probably introduced, with many other cultivated plants, from 

 China. The more common and important of the two species is, of course, the Kaki, Diospy- 

 ros Kaki, which is planted everywhere in the neighborhood of houses, which in the interior 

 of the main island are often embowered in small groves of this handsome tree. In shape it 

 resembles a well-grown Apple-tree, with a straight trunk, spreading branches which droop 

 toward the extremities and form a compact round head. Trees thirty or forty feet high are 

 often seen ; and in the autumn, when they are covered with fruit, and the leaves have turned 

 to the color of old Spanish red leather, they are exceedingly handsome. Perhaps there is no 

 tree, except the Orange, which, as a fruit-tree, is as beautiful as the Kaki. In central and 

 northern Japan the variety which produces large orange-colored ovate thick-skinned fruit 

 is the only one planted, and the cultivation of the red-fruited varieties with which we have 

 become acquainted in this country is confined to the south. A hundred varieties of Kaki, at 

 least, are now recognized and named by Japanese gardeners, but few of them are important 

 commercially in any part of the country which we visited, and, except in Kyoto, where red 

 kakis appeared, the only form I saw exposed for sale was the orange-colored variety, which, 

 fresh and dried, is consumed in immense quantities by the Japanese, who eat it, as they do 

 all their fruits, before it is ripe, and while it has the texture and consistency of a paving- 

 stone. 



Diospyros Kaki, or an allied species, is hardy in Peking, with a climate similar to that of 



