DECIDUOUS TREES AND SHRUBS OF JAPAN. 



13 



Since his return to Harvard, Professor Sargent has published 

 a remarkable and most interesting series of notes on the Forest 

 Flora of Japan in the American Garden and Forest, a paper which 

 has a considerable circulation in Great Britain. To what he has 

 written in a general way I have very little to add. In responding 

 to the invitation of the Council to lay before you my impressions 

 of the wonderful forest flora of Japan, I shall confine my remarks 

 chiefly to those trees and shrubs that are as yet scarcely known, 

 or are still but rarely seen, in British Arboreta. I shall pass 

 without notice a large number of trees and shrubs of Japanese 

 origin that have long been in our midst, making exception only 

 in the case of such species as appear to me to have not yet 

 received the attention they deserve. 



To begin with the Magnolia family. Eight species of 

 Magnolia are met with in Japan, of which one at least, M. 

 conspicua, is an introduced plant from China. Of these eight, 

 five, or perhaps six, have been introduced into this country, now 

 fortunately including M. hypoleuca, by far the finest of the 

 arborescent forms. I consider this species not only the hand- 

 somest of the Magnolias, but one of the handsomest deciduous 

 trees in Japan. Both in the main island and in Hokkaido, in 

 the hill forests it attains a height of from 80 to 100 feet, its large 

 leaves forming a pyramid of foliage of striking beauty and often 

 quite symmetrical. Its flowers, which are produced in large 

 numbers on the adult trees, are delightfully fragrant, and when 

 fully expanded are from 6 to 7 inches in diameter. Scarcely less 

 handsome are its cones of brilliant scarlet fruit, 6 to 8 inches long, 

 standing in autumn above the broad obovate leaves. M. hypoleuca 

 may be compared with the North American species, M. tripetala, 

 so long known in British'gardens as the Umbrella Magnolia, but 

 in my opinion it will prove superior to it as an ornamental tree. 

 Of smaller size than M. hypoleuca is M. Kobus, which attains a 

 height of 80 feet in the neighbourhood of Sapparo, where it is 

 common. The flowers, which appear early, are smaller than 

 those of M. hypoleuca, as are also the leaves ; the tree itself forms 

 a narrow pyramid with short slender branches, but becomes some- 

 what round-topped when' old. In the United States and in this 

 country its hardiness has been proved. The third arborescent 

 species is M. salicifolia, a small slender tree, 15 to 20 feet high. 

 I met with it in the 1 extreme north of the main island, at an 



