386 



THE ECONOMIC PLANTS OF JAPAN. 



in bloom, here is a sight worth seeing. The whole air is 

 scented for rods around with the fragrance of the delicate 

 pale lilac-blossoms. And they have bloomed here year 

 after year ever since the lovely Lady Wentworth had the 

 first ones set out in ante-Revolutionary days. 



For most of us the old-fashioned flowers have associa- 

 tions. I never see a spray of lilacs or breathe the fra- 

 grance of sweet-williams and mignonette without thinking 

 of the old school-house where these flowers, placed in an 

 old pitcher or bottle, stood on the teacher's desk through 

 long golden summer days. And the roses I have plucked 



for my pretty school-mates, and the great peonies I have 

 worn under my hatband, and the bunches of poppies 

 and hollyhocks I carried to cheer a sick friend, all come 

 to my memory whenever any of these flowers pass under 

 my notice. These old flowers have a meaning and signi- 

 ficance th'at newer favorites have not. They speak of 

 another time — of the life of past generations — and their 

 very perfume revives romances rich and varied as any of 

 those in the Decameron. 



Nezu Hampshire. Fred Myron Colby. 



THE ECONOMIC PLANTS OF JAPAN. 



ROOTS AND TUBERS 

 [Cotitinucd fioni 

 TERIS AQUILINA, L., Jap., H'arad/, the 

 common brake, grows wild every- 

 where in Japan, as also in America. 

 Starch made from its thickened 

 underground stems is mixed with 

 barley or millet and used for food in 

 northern Japan, where it is too cold 

 to grow rice. The plant is so abund- 

 ant in the wild state that it is not 

 cultivated. The starch from the 

 plant is also mixed with persimmon-juice to form a paste. 

 This paste is used in the construction of umbrella and 

 jinrikisha coverings, as it does not lose its adhesive 

 qualities when moistened. 



PuERARiA Thunbergiana, Benth. (Packyi-Aizus Thun- 

 bergianus, Sieb. and Zucc. ; Dolichos hh sutus, 

 Thunb.). Jap. Kiidzu. This very remarkable vine 

 grows wild in great abundance on the lower slopes of the 

 mountains in central Japan. It is a large, coarse, woody, 

 deciduous vine which in its mountain home twines its 

 long slender branches over bushes and trees within reach; 

 or trails over the rocks and up the slopes on the bare 

 ground, striking root from the nodes at frequent intervals, 

 thus establishing new centers from which to radiate. It 

 has no tendrils, but climbs by twining. The vines are 

 of nearly the same thickness throughout, and the entire 

 plant is covered thickly with short, rough hairs. The 

 leaves resemble those of beans, having three leaflets 



* Copyright by the Author. 



USED FOR FOOD. 

 April issue.) 



raised on long petioles, rough on both sides and fre- 

 quently lobtd. The illustration shows the end of a 

 young shoot, much reduced, and one of the young leaves 

 outlined natural size. The plant has three distinct eco- 

 nomic uses. The roots are fleshy and yield starch of 

 excellent quality ; the tough fiber of the inner bark is 

 manufactured into a sort of cloth which combines fine- 

 ness with remarkable strength ; and in certain situations 

 the vine is unparalleled for ornament and shade. It is 

 probably in this latter capacity that it will be prized in 

 this country. The pueraria will thrive in any soil, though 

 it attains its greatest vigor in a porous, rather sandy soil 

 where the roots can push freely in all directiops, like the 

 soil formed by disintegrated scoria enriched by accumu- 

 l?tions of humus, found on the mountain-slopes of its 

 native land. I know of no woody plant that can at all 

 compare with it in its extraordinary rapidity of growth 

 even under conditions which do not favor best develop- 

 ment. In the summer of 1886 I planted a cutting Just 

 rooted (which I bought in a nursery for two cents), be- 

 side the piazza of the half-foreign Japanese house I 

 occupied. It soon became established and made a good 

 growth the same summer, but did not attract special 

 attention, and was cut back to the ground early in the 

 following spring. During the summer of 1887, when the 

 plant was but two years old, it made what appeared to 

 me so extraordinary a growth that I determined to take 

 the combined lineal measure of all the branches. At the 

 close of the saason, when the leaves had fallen, the 



