500 AOYAMA ; 
which form a dense cover of the branches before the leaves 
appear. 
It is evidently the peculiar climatic condition of central and 
southern Japan which prevents the production of normal cherries 
and causes the fruit to fall off in an unripe condition. This cir¬ 
cumstance must naturally lead to the accumulation of a great 
amount of reserve-material in the bark and wood, that would 
otherwise have been consumed by the ripening fruit, and this is 
clearly also the cause that leads to the development of such an 
extraordinary and astonishing abundance of blossoms in the fol¬ 
lowing spring. I therefore believed it of some interest to deter¬ 
mine the amount of reserve-material in winter and to compare it 
with the extent of the consumption of this reserve-material in 
spring when flowers and leaves have been formed. 
Branches i —1.5 cm. in thickness were collected on the 20th 
January (A) and, again of the same tree, branches of the same 
size on the 13th April (B) on which day also I collected from the 
same tree young leaves and flowers. 
Only the leaving part of the bark, containing more or less* 
cambium, served for analysis/ 0 
The 
results I 
obtained are the 
following :— 
Bark (A) 
Bark (B) 
Leaf. 
Flower. 
Total water . 
.52.64 
5341 
In 100 parts of dry matter, 
* 
Crude protein. 
. 9.50 
6.69 
34-94 
20.13 
Crude fat. 
. 6.84 
5-34 
8.99 
IO.O4 
Crude fibre. 
• 34-79 
38.98 
14.49 
20 .o6 
Carbohydrate. 
■ 2 7' 1 3 
18.06 
11.82 
12.50 
Crude ash . .. 
■ 7-76 
7-93 
6.51 
7-25 
Non-nitrogenous extract .... 
. 12.46 
21.93 
17.66 
26.80 
Total nitrogen. 
. 1.52 
1.07 
5-59 
3.22 
Albuminoid nitrogen . 
. 1.18 
0.84 
4-55 
2.4O 
If we compare the precentage composition of bark (A) with 
that of bark (B), we can obtain no clear distinction between re¬ 
lative and absolute numbers, i.e. between the apparent and real 
decrease or increase of the different constituents ; evidently a 
(i) The wood was not examined. Some trees contain more starch in March and 
April than in January {Rosenberg, Bot. Centrbl. 66, 337). Cf. also the above examina¬ 
tion of the root of the mulberry tree, by Maeno. Tt may be that in such cases fat and 
proteins contributed to the formation of starch. 
