56 FOREST FLOE A OF JAPAN. 



pointed, rather thin, dark green above, pale and often pubescent below, and two or three 

 inches in length, with long slender stalks. The fruit, which is nearly an inch in diameter, is 

 reddish brown and marked with many small white dots ; the flesh is thin, papery, and very 

 brittle. Lindera prsecox is common on the Hakone Mountains ; we found it near Agematsu, 

 on the Nakasendo, and Mr. Veitch collected it on Mount Chokai-zan, on the northwest coast 

 of Hondo. If it inhabits the Nikko Mountains we missed it there, and also on Hakkoda, 

 near Aomori, where Lindera sericea was the only species seen. The other Japanese species, 

 Lindera glauca, is a southern black-fruited plant with precocious flowers and the habit and 

 general appearance of Lindera sericea, from which it differs in its larger leaves and more rigid 

 branches. 



Of Elseagnus, the sole representative of its family in Japan, we only saw growing natu- 

 rally Elseagnus umbellata, a variable plant in the size and shape of its leaves and fruit, and 

 one of the commonest shrubs in Japan from the level of the sea up to elevations of 5,000 

 feet. Li the mountainous regions and at the north it is often planted near houses for the feake 

 of its small acid fruit ; and in cultivation it not infrequently rises to the size and dignity of a 

 small tree. Elseagnus umbellata is now well established in our gardens, where it flowers and 

 fruits as freely as it does in Japan. 



The now well-known Elseagnus longipes was often seen in gardens, especially among the 

 mountains and in Yezo, but we did not notice it growing wild. In old age it sometimes 

 attains the height of twenty or twenty-five feet, and forms a stout straight trunk a foot in 

 diameter. Such a plant, evidently of great age, may be seen in the Botanic Garden at 

 Tokyo. The beautiful Elseagnus pungens, with its long wand-like stems, now a familiar 

 object in several varieties in the gardens of southern Europe, was seen in the temple grounds 

 at Nara and by the roadside near Kyoto, where it appeared to have escaped from cultivation 

 rather than to be an indigenous plant. Of the other reputed Japanese species we could 

 hear nothing 



The flora of Japan, although it is comparatively rich in Euphorbiacese, does not contain 

 any important trees belonging to this family. One species of Daphniphyllum, a Malayan 

 genus with beautiful lustrous evergreen foliage and handsome fruit, and now known in the 

 gardens of temperate Europe in the shrubby Daphniphyllum glaucesens, attains the size of a 

 small tree ; this is Daphniphyllum macropodum, which we saw not far from Gif u, growing, as 

 it seemed, naturally. It is interesting to note that one species of this tropical genus, Daph- 

 niphyllum humile, grows far north in Yezo, where, as well as on the mountains of northern 

 Hondo, it is a common under-shrub in the forest of deciduous trees. We obtained a supply 

 of seeds of this handsome plant, although it is hardly to be expected that it will be able to 

 survive our northern winters, as it will miss here the continuous covering of snow under which 

 it is buried in Yezo during many months of the year. 



Of the smaU genus of Aleurites of eastern tropical Asia and the Pacific islands, one 

 species reaches southern Japan, Aleurites cordata, which we saw only in the Botanic Garden 

 at Tokyo. This little tree has large long-stalked three-lobed leaves, inconspicuous flowers in 

 terminal panicles, and large black drupe-Hke fruit ; it may be expected to grow in the southern 



