12 THRBE NEW PLANT INTRODUCTIONS. 
stems, broad, light-green leaves, and delicate yellow flowers which are 
borne in heads. Its forks are always composed of three branches 
instead of two, as is common with other shrubs, and this character 
alone distinguishes it from any common shrub in cultivation. It is 
sometimes grown in Japan for its decorative yellow flowers alone. 
The Marquis Matsudaira, formerly one of the feudal lords of the 
country, has it planted inside his castle wallsat Fukuias an ornamental 
plant. Scarcely over 5 feet high, it has, as a result of its peculiar 
branching habit, a characteristic vase form. (Pls. I and II, fig. 2.) 
Owing to the fact that in the cultivation of the plant it is continually 
pollarded near the surface of the ground, it is difficult to say what the 
plant would grow into if left to itself. The lght, brownish-gray 
bark is thick and lace-like as a piece of tapa, and one can easily spread 
a bit of it out with the fingers into a web-like, rough fabric. The 
small fruits are borne in clusters and are about a quarter of an inch 
long. Each fruit contains, inside the thin layer of flesh, a shiny black, 
sharp-pointed seed, with a thin shell and milk-white contents. 
In the provinces of Shizuoka, Nogano, and Fattori are quite exten- 
sive plantations of mitsumata, and it is said that the areas under 
cultivation are steadily increasing. Asa rule, the plantations occupy 
land which is not fit for rice growing, such as hillsides too steep for 
terracing and valleys too narrow to make rice culture practicable. 
Red or yellow clay of volcanic origin, mixed often with rocks and 
coarse gravel, seems to suit the plant admirably. The hillside planta- 
tions sometimes reach to the line of newly cut cryptomeria forest, and 
even cover the tops of the hills from which, many years before, the 
timber had all been cut. Good drainage seems to be one necessary 
requisite to the growth of the plant in the wet climate of Japan, but its 
culture between the rice fields proves that it can stand heavy irrigation, 
though a plant not well suited to withstand drought. 
THE CULTIVATION OF MITSUMATA. 
Early in June, in Japan, children not over 8 or 9 years old are sent 
through the plantations with baskets to pick the ripe fruits of the 
mitsumata. The plants produce seed sparingly, it is said, so that the 
work of collection is much like picking wild blackberries or straw- 
berries in America, but it is far more irksome for the children, for 
instead of being palatable the thin-shelled seeds contain an exceedingly 
acrid endosperm. 
The seeds, with their thin, green flesh, are spread out to weather 
until the latter has rotted away, leaving the black seeds, which are 
packed in a sack made from the double sheath of the native palm. 
The meshes of this natural sack are fine enough to prevent the seeds 
from falling out and still allow the air and moisture to enter. In this 
form they are buried in a hole in the ground under the shelter of an 
