1895.] Sargent’s Studies of the Forests of Japan. 1053 
idea at all of many of the Japanese trees. But, fortunately, 
for nearly two thousand years the priests of Buddha have 
planted and replanted trees about their temples, which are 
often surrounded by what now appear to be natural woods, as 
no tree is ever cut and no attempt is made to clear up the un- 
dergrowth. These groves are sometimes of considerable extent, 
and contain noble trees, Japanese and Chinese, which give 
some idea of what the inhabitants of the forests of Japan were 
before the land was cleared for agriculture. 
The floras of Japan and eastern America have, it is true, 
some curious features in common, and the presence in the two 
regions of certain types not found elsewhere shows their rela- 
tionship. But these plants are usually small, and are rare or 
grow only on the high mountains. Diphylleia, Buckleya, 
Epigaea, and Shortia show the common origin of the two 
floras; but these are rare plants in Japan, as they are in 
America, with the exception of Epigaea, and probably not one 
traveller in ten thousand has ever seen them, while the chief 
elements of the forest flora of northern Japan, the only part of 
the Empire where, as has already been said, comparison is 
possible—those which all travellers notice—do not recall 
America so much, perhaps, as they do Siberia and Europe.” 
On making a close comparison of the forests of Japan and 
eastern North America, it is found that in the former region 
there is no Black Oak, Chestnut Oak, Tulip-tree, Pawpaw, Gor- 
donia, Plum-tree, Locust, Gymnocladus, Liquidambar, Tupelo, 
Osage Orange, Sassafrass, Plane-tree or Hickory. Moreover, 
in many instances where a genus has representatives in both 
regions, the species are rather of the European than the North 
American type. The Japanese forests contain species of many 
genera which have no North American representatives, as 
Euptelea, Cercidiphyllum, Trochodendron, Idesia, Ternstroe- 
mia, Cleyera, Eurya, Camellia, Phellodendron, Hovenia, 
Euscaphis, Maackia, Albizzia, Distylium, Acanthopanax, 
Syringa, Cinnamomum, Machilus, Actinodaphne, ete., ete. 
Magnolia and Aesculus occur in both regions, as also Rhus, 
Hamamelis, Aralia, Cornus, Juglans, Thuya, Chamæcyparis, 
Picea, Abies and Tumion (Torreya). 
