JAPANESE PLANTS AND GARDENS. 



13 



hard to find in England a popular name for Saxifraga oppositifolia or 

 Gentiana verna, any Japanese peasant will at once give their common 

 name for Schizocodon, Conandron, or Cypripedium. 



As so much has already been said on Japanese gardens, and as I 

 myself am only a reverent admirer of the fine details of Japanese artistic 

 symbolism, I will go straight to the subject of such wild plants as may be 

 of value for cultivation in England. At first great difficulty seems to be 

 presented by the difference between Japanese soil and climate and our 

 own. Practically the whole of Japan — at least in Hondo and Hokkaido 

 — is blessed with bottom-heat of volcanic nature. Further, the soil is 

 very often of soft warm volcanic silts, enriched with abundance of vege- 

 table humus. Further, the climate is very trying. The summer is 

 intensely hot, and the winter even more intensely cold, and rain is prac- 

 tically persistent throughout the year. This combination will show at 

 once what difficulties may be expected to occur in the acclimatisation of 

 such plants in our own climate, where the summer heat is incapable 

 of giving the plants sufficient power to resist the chilly damps of 

 winter, so different from the icy frosts of the Tokio plain, and where 

 our heavy soil is powerless for the most part to carry off the heavy rain- 

 fall that clogs it. But the ambitious gardener need never be discouraged 

 by anticipating improbabilities of success. No arguments are more un- 

 certain than those based on the probable ease, or difficulty of culture of 

 certain species. Plants behave in the most eccentric manner when 

 introduced into gardens. It might have been expected that our native 

 Gentiana verna would be very easily cultivated, yet, over a great part of 

 England it fails hopelessly. It might, on the other hand, be anticipated 

 that the high-alpine Ranunculus glacialis would prove impossible ; yet 

 in England it thrives without any difficulty. Therefore great hopes may 

 be entertained that the more beautiful Japanese wild plants may be 

 found amenable when introduced by means of seeds. 



Though the Japanese landscape is rather disappointing to the flower- 

 lover in its absence of bare and open spaces, yet there are many lovely 

 species that one may see upon one's journeys. Some of them I have 

 noted, with a few suggestions. 



Lobelia radicans. — A vigorous and compact-growing plant, bearing large 

 purple or rosy flowers in such abundance as to hide the foliage. The 

 appearance of this species when in bloom is such as to recall some very 

 floriferous dwarf linaria. It is quite common, but grows best in open 

 humid places, such as the banks of an unshaded stream or pond. It 

 flowers in early summer, and should prove of the greatest value for 

 English bog-gardens. My own plants are very small as yet, so that I 

 cannot claim to have given it any fair trial, but I anticipate little diffi- 

 culty. 



Litlwspermumerythrorhizon. — A species allied to purpureo-ccerulcum, 

 but incomparably more brilliant. It is an inhabitant of thin copses, where 

 it produces its large flowers of the most dazzlingly pure azure blue in such 

 abundance as to suggest a patch of fallen sky. This species has not yet, I 

 believe, been successfully introduced into England. In old days, it was a 

 "meibuts' " (especial glory) of the Tokio plain, and the inhabitants used 

 to make pilgrimages from the city to adore it during the splendour of its 



