67 
The Japanese Yew. The value of this plant for the northern states 
has been pointed out before in these Bulletins, and as the years pass 
its hardiness and value are confirmed by longer trial. There are three 
or four quite distinct forms of this plant. The one probably most often 
seen here grows as a large, vase-shaped shrub with several spreading 
stems. Plants of this sort have been raised in the Arboretum from 
the seeds of tall forest trees collected by Professor Sargent in Hok- 
kaido. Among these plants there are some which are beginning to 
develop a single leader and promise to grow into trees. There is an- 
other form which is grown in some American nurseries under the un- 
published name of variety capifata. This is merely a seminal form 
which begins to grow with a single leader with treelike habit as soon 
as the seeds germinate. For those who want the Japanese Yew in 
the form of a tree rather than a bush this form will best produce the 
desired results. Another bushy form with wide-spreading, nearly hor- 
izontal branches, which on plants thirty or forty years old often turn 
up at the ends and darker green leaves, is often seen in American 
gardens in which specimens only four or five feet high but sometimes 
twenty feet in diameter are found. In this country this variety is 
generally called variety brevifolia, but the correct name for it is var. 
nana. A dwarf, round-topped plant (var. compacta) is the smallest and 
most compact of all the forms of the Japanese Yew in this country. 
A good plant of this dwarf form can be seen in the Arboretum collec- 
tion where it has been growing for many years. Plants intermediate 
between the varieties compacta and nana, differing in size and habit, 
are sometimes found in American gardens. What is probably the 
largest Japanese Yew in the United States is one of the bushy 
vase-shaped plants which was planted about 1870 by Dr. George R. Hall 
in his garden in Warren on Bristol Neck, Rhode Island. In October, 
1889, this plant was twelve feet high and covered a space on the 
ground of forty feet round. In October, 1916, twenty-seven years later, 
it is twenty-two feet tall and covers a space one hundred and thirty- 
two feet round. In 1887 there were only a few fruits on this Yew, 
but this year it is bearing such a great crop that the berries make 
the whole plant look red. The foliage unfortunately is not dense, and 
the plant is evidently failing, probably from insufficient nourishment. 
The Japanese Yew is now reported to be perfectly hardy in central 
New Hampshire and in Minneapolis, Minnesota, parts of the country 
where the winter cold is much greater than it is in eastern Massachu- 
setts, and there is no reason to doubt the statement which has been 
made that this Yew is the most valuable plant which Japan has fur- 
nished our north Atlantic states. 
Sorbus commixta. This Japanese Mountain Ash was the first of the 
species from eastern Asia cultivated in the Arboretum where it was 
first planted in 1888. It is a common plant in Japan, and as it grows 
here it is a narrow tree with a tall clear stem, leaves composed of 
narrow leaflets, flower-clusters of moderate size and bright red fruits. 
It is chiefly interesting on account of the beautiful orange and red 
colors of the leaves which turn later and more brilliantly than those 
