SOME LESSER-KNOWN JAPAN TREES AND SHRUBS. 



857 



SOME LESSER-KNOWN JAPAN TREES AND SHRUBS. 



By James H. Veitch, F.L.S. 



[Delivered September 23, 1902.] 



Although now nearly forty years since the flora of Japan first received 

 serious attention from the gardeners of Europe and America, there are 

 still, practically unknown outside botanical establishments, many trees 

 and shrubs worthy of the best positions in our gardens, from the dis- 

 tinctive elegance of their foliage and habits, or from the profusion with 

 which they produce their attractive flowers. 



It is but natural that planters should be anxious as to the chances of 

 successfully establishing and growing in Europe trees and shrubs coming 

 from a country embracing such an unusual latitude, with a climate in its 

 extreme north almost arctic, and in its most southern islands sub-tropical ; 

 with volcanic hills and mountains where rain falls pitilessly sometimes for 

 days together, and plains but a few miles distant enduring in the summer 

 months an almost torrid heat. 



That many of these trees and shrubs can be established and cultivated 

 with success may be seen by the photographs and branches cut from 

 specimens shown in the Hall. These trees were planted about 1880 on 

 Kingston Hill in Surrey, where for the past twenty years they have with- 

 stood winters of severity, and latterly summers of unusual drought. 



To the uncertainty of the suitability of some of the inhabitants of the 

 forests of Japan to our climate must be added (as a reason for their 

 hitherto not having been more extensively planted) the time required for a 

 full knowledge of a flora so rich and concentrated as that under con- 

 sideration, due to the comparatively few years it has been possible to travel 

 freely in all parts of the country. 



So rich is this flora that Professor Sargent has been able to place on 

 record that, in ascending a hill near Sapporo in the northern island only 

 500 feet above the sea-level, he noticed forty-six species and varieties of 

 trees and shrubs, and, within a radius of five miles of this hill, several 

 others, in all sixty-two species and varieties, probably a larger number 

 than can be found in any other similar area outside the tropics. 



How many of these trees and shrubs are actually peculiar to Japan 

 will probably never be definitely ascertained, so largely have species in- 

 troduced from China and Corea acclimatised themselves. In a general 

 way this is well known, but having during the past summer had the 

 opportunity of looking through several hundreds of dried specimens from 

 the upper part of the Yangtsze Valley sent by a representative of my firm, 

 E. H. Wilson, I was much struck with the great number of trees and 

 shrubs of which he had secured specimens, and which are also found in 

 Japan. 



The argument one sometimes hears, that planting is not a hobby of the 

 young, and that when its attractions become evident one is too old to plant 

 and hope to live to enjoy the results, does not apply to many of the trees 



