ENUMERATION OF THE SPECIES 101 



cm. long, grooved, shining brown, often bloomy in color, pilose and villose 

 with scattered hairs, and is subtended by the persistent calyx. The winter-buds 

 are ovoid, acute or subacute, gray-brown and very slightly puberulous, but 

 the scales are margined with a row of white, nearly straight hairs. The leaves 

 are more or less spatulate to oblanceolate, from 5 to 10 cm. long and from 

 1.5 to 3 cm. broad; when mature they are green on both surfaces, strongly veined 

 and have scattered, appressed, bristly hairs pointing toward the apex of the 

 leaf on the upper surface and on the under-surface of the primary and secondary 

 veins; the margins are ciliate, the apex is tipped by a glandular mucro and the 

 base is narrowed to the short petiole. When unfolding, both surfaces of the leaf, 

 but more especially the lower, are often sparsely covered with a short, soft pubes- 

 cence, but this is soon thrown off. In late autumn the leaves are quite glabrous 

 except for the appressed bristles and the cilia on the margins, and change to red 

 and red-purple. The character of the leaves is important, since it affords an 

 easy and accurate means of distinguishing the species from its Chinese relative 

 {R. molle G. Don). 



The history of the introduction of this Japanese Azalea into western gardens is 

 considerably involved. A Hollander, J. B. Groenewegen, in Sempervirens, XIX. 

 532 (1890), states that he received seeds of this plant direct from Japan in 1861, 

 and raised many plants which he afterward sold to a Belgian friend, by whom they 

 were distributed among Belgian nurserymen, including Louis van Houtte. Later 

 these plants were hybridised with other cultivated species and varieties and many 

 beautiful plants were raised. In 1863 Maximowicz introduced seeds to Petrograd, 

 where plants were raised which flowered and were figured by Regel in the Garten- 

 flora, XVI. 289, t. 556 (1867). In 1869 seeds were distributed from Petrograd. 

 Hooker in figuring it in the Botanical Magazine, XCVII. t. 5905 (1871), states that 

 the specimens were communicated by William Bull, nurseryman, Chelsea, with 

 whom it flowered for the first time in March, 1870. Seeds were received at the 

 Arnold Arboretum on April 3, 1876, from the Jardin des Plantes, Paris, and plants 

 flowered in Professor Sargent's garden in the spring of 1880. Seedlings raised from 

 this stock flowered in the Arboretum in 1884. In 1890 Dr. W. S. Bigelow sent 

 seeds from Japan to this Arboretum, and in 1892 Professor Sargent also sent seeds 

 of it in quantity. Plants raised from this latter source have for many years been 

 well established here and seeds from them have been widely distributed. In the 

 Arnold Arboretum R. japonicum is perfectly hardy, grows freely and vigorously 

 and flowers profusely every season. With its large trusses of bright to dull flame- 

 colored flowers it is strikingly handsome and is worthy of a place in every garden. 

 That in the past it has been neglected is undoubtedly due to its having been con- 

 fused with its less hardy Chinese relative and with hybrid and seminal forms of 

 both species. The error was started by Siebold and Zuccarini in 1846 and Miquel 

 followed them; Gray was first to give the Japanese plant specific rank under a new 

 name. Miquel, Regel and Maximowicz in the 60's all recognised it as distinct from 

 the Chinese plant and ranked it as a variety. After this for about forty years 

 botanists merged it under the Chinese species and until Suringar in a critical, 

 painstaking account in the Gartenflora, LVII. 516 (1908) established its right to be 

 considered a good species. From even a cursory glance at the literature it is evi- 

 dent that the nurserymen of Belgium and Holland, at any rate, all along recognised 

 the two plants as distinct. 



The Japanese name for R. japonicum is " Renge-tsutsuji," and a form with 

 slightly different colored flowers is " Beni-renge-tsutsuji." To the latter the 

 name var. rosea has been given by Ito (Icon. PI. Jap. I. No. 5, 4 [1913]). The 

 colors indicated by the two Japanese names are merely extremes and merge in- 

 extricably into each other. Though this Azalea is now grown in some quantity in 



