THE 
HEW PHYTOIiOGIST. 
Vol. XII, No. 2. February, 1913. 
[Published Feb. 28th, 1913]. 
THE VEGETATION OF JAPAN. 
By H. Takeda, D.I.C. 
(Demonstrator in Botany, Royal College of Science, London). 
M 
I.—Introduction. 
ANY valuable and interesting papers dealing with certain 
constituents of the flora of Japan have been published by 
not a few botanists, both Japanese and foreign. Yet there has been 
lacking, so far as I am aware, a general account of the flora or 
vegetation of Japan, except perhaps in the form of a catalogue or 
enumeration of plants growing in that Empire. It has been sug¬ 
gested therefore that a brief description of the vegetation of Japan 
would he interesting to the readers of this journal. The present 
paper has been re-written from lectures addressed in 1912 to the 
Natural History Society of the Imperial College Union and to 
the Botanical Society of London, and it is proposed therein to give 
a general idea of the vegetation of Japan. 
II.—Geographical Features and Climate of Japan. 
The position occupied by Japan is somewhat similar to that of 
Britain, with this difference, that while the British Isles lie on the 
west of the European continent, the Islands of Japan are to the 
east of the mainland of Asia. Taking them in the order from north 
to south, the group of islands comprised in the present Empire o f 
Japan consists of the Kurile Islands, the southern half of Saghalien, 
Yezo, the main island known to the Japanese as Hont6 and 
occasionally called by Europeans Nippon, Shikoku, Kytishu, the 
Loochoos, Formosa, and the Pescadores. These islands stretch 
diagonally from the 52nd down to the 21st degree of north latitude, 
and are situated between the 120th and 156th degrees of longitude 
east of Greenwich. The above described area of the Empire was 
