THE KURUME AZALEAS OF JAPAN 
ERNEST H. WILSON 
Assistant Director, Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University 
Far and Away the Greatest Horticultural Sensation of a Half-Century this Extraordinary 
Race is Even Yet Scarcely Known Outside the Orient Though Shown Here Five Years Ago 
% 
[Editor’s Note: This is the first published statement concerning a group of wondrously beautiful Azaleas, which will be on 
public exhibition in Horticultural Hall, Boston, March 24 to 28. IVe were favored with an opportunity to see the plants last year, 
shortly after arrival, and were enraptured at the clear, beautiful, almost “ethereal” tones of the scattering blooms. The introduction of 
these at this time is a sensational achievement indeed, but sad to relate though they exist in quantity in Japan a ftirther importa- 
tion is impossible because of Quarantine 77 as administered by the present Federal Horticultural Board] 
SEEMS absurd that after almost three quarters of a 
'liwJ 7 century of direct intercourse we should virtually know 
nothing about a whole race of plants which have been 
developed to perfection by the flower-loving Japanese. 
Yet such is the case in regard to these Kurume Azaleas. Three 
are familiar — the fairly new “hinodegiri” and older Azaleas 
amoena and obtusa— but these three are not of the best; and 
there are hundreds! Moreover, these Kurume Azaleas appear to 
be no better known in England than here. Bean’s “Trees and 
Shrubs Hardy in the British Isles” (1914) makes no mention of 
them; while Millais’ monograph of the genus Rhododendron, 
(1917) says a few complimentary words and lists about a dozen 
under “ Japanese R. indicum or R. indicum amoenum hybrids.” 
It was during the Arnold Arboretum expedition to Japan in 
1914 that I first became acquainted with these Kurume Azaleas 
in general, and visited the garden of a Mr. Oishi who specialized 
in these flowers at Hatogaya, a few miles north of Tokyo. His 
plants were very small but he allowed me to make a complete 
collection of dried specimens for our herbarium. In and around 
Tokyo itself 1 found Azaleas amoena, obtusa, and hinodegiri 
commonly grown and in 
quantity, but none other of 
this group. That year 1 had 
no further opportunity of 
studying these Azaleas more 
deeply, but on our next Ex- 
pedition (1917-19) 1 deter- 
mined to visit the city where 
they were originated and the 
mountain on which the wild 
parents were reputed to grow. 
The opportunity came in 
1918, and, to my great good 
fortune, I had as companion 
Mr. H. Suzuki, the head of 
the Yokohama Nursery Com- 
pany — an important person- 
age in Japanese horticulture 
and a delightful companion. 
The city of Kurume is on the 
island of Kyushu and some 
800 miles south by west from 
Tokyo. There we arrived on 
May 3rd, to find the Azaleas 
in the pink of perfection! 1 went prepared to see a display of 
blossoms, but the entrancing beauty of the delicately colored 
flowers surpassed my most sanguine expectations. The gardens 
of Messrs. Akashi and Kuwano, the two leading specialists, 
were veritable fairylands; and 1 gasped with astonishment when 
1 realized that garden lovers of America — and Europe, too — knew 
virtually nothing of this wealth of beauty. 
M OST of the plants were trained into low standards each 
about 20 inches high with flattened or convex crown some 
<8 inches through, and were monuments to the patience and cul- 
tural skill of the Japanese gardener. Other shapes there were 
but this was the favorite and most effective. The flowers — 
each about half to three quarters of an inch across, and borne 
in clusters of from two to’several at the end of every twig— were 
in such profusion as almost completely to hide the leaves. If a 
fault could be found it was that the flowers were too numerous! 
The colors are most pleasing — pure pink to rose, cerise, laven- 
der, mauve to magenta, salmon, vermilion, bright red to deep 
scarlet; others the purest white. Some have bizarre-colored 
flowers, but such 1 do not favor. A great many have the calyx 
petaloid and the flowers are hose-in-hose. The stamens, always 
five, and pistil are perfect and there is no malformation as in 
ordinary double-flowers. The anthers tip the straight filaments, 
are light to dark, varying with the color shades, and add not a 
little to the pleasing appearance of the flowers. 
Specialists in Kurume recognize some two hundred and fifty 
sorts and each has a name, but the distinguishing points are 
often too slight for the un- 
initiated to grasp. More than 
fifty kinds however are quite 
distinct one from another, 
though for practical purposes 
this may be reduced to about 
twenty-five. Messrs. Akashi 
and Kuwano selected as the 
very best the following six:— 
“Takasago” (pure pink, hose- 
in-hose), “ Azuma-kagami ” 
(deep pink), “Kirin” (deep 
rose, shading to silvery rose), 
“Kumonouye” (pure sal- 
mon), “ Kurainohimo” (ver- 
milion, hose-in-hose), and 
“Kurenoyuki” (white, hose- 
in-hose). M v companion and 
self concurred; but had the 
number been a dozen the 
task would have been easier! 
We visited the principal 
gardens and spent several 
hours in that of Mr. Kijiro 
Akashi, who for more than forty years has assiduously devoted 
himself to the development of these Azaleas, and has raised 
from seeds and perpetuated by cuttings nearly all the forms 
in cultivation, in his garden is the finest of all collections, 
and the loving pride with which this grand old gardener pointed 
out to us the particular merits of this or that pet can be ap- 
preciated only bv those whose lives have been lived in close 
A BIT OF THE GREAT COLLECTION OF MR. KIJIRO AKASHI 
From this, into which the initial collection of Mr. Sakamoto the 
originator of these Azaleas, came at his death, the fifty-two 
pairs of plants now in Boston were brought eleven months ago 
