ENUMERATION OF THE SPECIES 35 



which there are two principal peaks, Nishi and Higashi, is a sacred mountain cele- 

 brated in Japanese mythology. It was on Nishi-Kirishima that the god Ninigi, 

 grandson of the sun-goddess Amaterasu, alighted when he came down from heaven 

 to pave the way for the conquest of Japan. A bronze sword, fixed in the ground, 

 hilt upward, crowns the peak and is considered to be a relic of this divinity. To a 

 place so sacred pilgrimages have been made by the Japanese from time immemo- 

 rial. With their profound love for flowers some of the pilgrims would certainly 

 take back as a souvenir living plants of this charming Azalea. Naturally it was 

 named for the mountain, and in the course of time was distributed widely in the 

 gardens of Japan. It is easily understood that a plant bearing flowers of an un- 

 usual color would be that selected as a souvenir by the average pilgrim. It is such 

 forms that reached gardens first, and so we find the red obtusa the magenta amoena, 

 the white alba to be the earliest known. In the autumn of 1918 I collected a quan- 

 tity of seeds on Nishi-Kirishima for the Arnold Arboretum. These have been widely 

 distributed, and it will be interesting to watch the range of variation in the habit 

 foliage and flowers of resultant plants. I fear, however, that they will not prove 

 so hardy as the var. Kaempferi, but that they will find a welcome in gardens I am 

 quite sure. 



On visiting Nishi-Kirishima, where between 650 and 1500 m. altitude this form 

 jo/ponicum grows in great abundance, and after seeing the wide range of color among 

 the flowers, I am absolutely convinced that this Azalea is the wild parent of the 

 race known as " Kurume Azaleas." The plant (R. obtusum Planch.) which, following 

 International Rules, has to do duty as type of this species, also belongs to this race, 

 and of it too there is a hose-in-hose form known as " Yayehiryu " in Kurume. 

 Another of these Azaleas which in recent years has become widely known is the 

 brilliant red-flowered " Hinodegiri." Curiously this form so abundant in Tokyo and 

 Osaka gardens is to-day not grown at Kurume. But good as the forms named 

 above are, they are surpassed by many hardly known in western gardens, and 

 in fact scarcely known in Japan outside of Kurume and a narrow circle of 

 enthusiasts. Millais in his Rhododendrons makes the first reference to the race 

 in a European publication. I first became acquainted with "Kurume Azaleas " in 

 1914, when at the invitation of Mr. H. Suzuki of the Yokohama Nursery Company 

 and a foremost Japanese horticulturist, I accompanied him on a visit to the nursery 

 district at Hatagaya, a few miles north of Tokyo. There, in the garden of Mr. 

 Oishi, I saw thousands of tiny plants bearing white and colored flowers of nearly 

 every hue. I secured a set of fragments and dried them for our herbarium, and 

 later, in 1916, at my suggestion Mr. John S. Ames, North Easton, Mass., pur- 

 chased a selection of living plants from Mr. Oishi's collection. These arrived in 

 thespringof 1917and werethefirst " Kurume Azaleas " introduced into easternNorth 

 America. In May, 1917, I saw in the Yokohama Nursery a few large plants of 

 " Kurume Azaleas," trained into umbrella-shape, in full flower and this decided me to 

 visit the place of their origin. This became possible in the spring of 1918 and I was 

 fortunate to have as a companion my friend Mr. H. Suzuki. Kurume is some 800 

 miles south by west from Tokyo and is quite an important city, but the fame of its 

 Azaleas is likely to make it better known in the near future. The Azaleas are 

 grown in a number of gardens and nurseries, but the oldest and best collection is 

 that of Mr. Kijiro Akashi. This fine old gardener has for more than forty years 

 devoted himself to the development of this race of Azaleas and has raised from 

 seeds and perpetuated by cuttings nearly all the forms in cultivation. Mr. Akashi 

 gave me the history of the race, and it seems that it originated about one hundred 

 years ago with a gentleman named Motozo Sakamoto, who lived at Kurume. The 

 parents came from sacred Mt. Kirishima, but whether brought from there by 

 Sakamoto himself or given to him by some pilgrim is uncertain. At any rate, 



