Travel Tales 
of a PI ant Coll ector 
E. H. WILSON 
Assistant Director of the Arnold Arboretum 
Author of “Romance of Our Trees,” “Aristocrats of the Garden,” “A Naturalist in Western China 
X. JAPAN, THE LAND OF CHERRY BLOOM 
Where a Nation Holds Festal Holiday in the Time of Flowers—Wistaria that Throws out Five-foot 
Blossom Sprays by the Ten Thousand—The Home of the Kurume Azalea, Renowned for its Color 
Editors’ Note: by his unparalleled contribution to Occidental gardens of more than 2,000 new trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants brought back from a 
fourteen-year search in the Far East, Mr. Wilson has won the permanent gratitude of gardeners everywhere. Many of his introductions are already established in 
popular favor, and nearly 200 have received the authoritative stamp of the Royal Horticultural Society’s Award of Merit. 
The exclusive privilege of publishing these accounts of “Chinese Wilson’s” recent plant explorations through Africa, Asia, and Australia, in the footsteps of 
the older plant collectors, has been accorded The Garden Magazine, and preceding articles will be found in previous issues beginning with January of this year. 
Copyright, D. P. & Co., 1923 
|ND what of Japan, land of the Cherry blossom, with 
whose name every garden-lover is familiar? Japan 
has drawn freely on the civilization of her ancient 
neighbor—China. Her written language, her art, and 
her culture are borrowed and modelled on those of China. The 
love for flowers is, to-day, more general in Japan than in 
China, yet in all probability it was in emulation of the Chinese 
that flowers began to enter so largely into the life of the Japan¬ 
ese people. Whether this regard for flowers antedates the 
coming of Buddhism into Japan 1 do not know, but in any case 
this religion has done much toward developing and fostering it. 
Many flowers and trees—the Moutan and Ginkgo for example 
—were introduced 
by Buddhist priests. 
The style of garden¬ 
ing practised in Ja¬ 
pan and the art of 
dwarfing trees are 
Chinese, and many 
Cryptomeria, Enkianthus perulatus, and various Arborvitaes. 
Japan, or the group of islands which form that country, 
is about the same length as the Atlantic seaboard of this 
country from Nova Scotia to the Florida Keys. Nowhere is the 
width considerable, but the coastline is much indented and 
broken. There is a backbone of high mountains, chiefly vol¬ 
canic, the loftiest of which is sacred Mt. Fuji rising to a height 
of 12,100 ft. above the sea-level. In the central part of the 
main island there are granite peaks well-nigh 10,000 feet high, 
but limestone is rare. Many of the volcanoes are still active, 
and in a yet greater number the highest parts are bare cones of 
ashes and volcanic debris. The rivers of Japan are short and 
swift with broad 
rock-strewn mouths 
where they debouch 
from the mountain- 
valleys. The land 
surface of Japan is 
therefore verv 
CARL PETER THUNBERG (1743-1828) 
Author of the first “Flora” of 
Japan and pupil of the great 
Linnaeus whom he succeeded 
at the University of Upsala 
KARL J. MAXiMOWICZ (1827-1891) 
This illustrious Russian spent a 
half-dozen years in the Far East, 
devoting most of his life to the 
study and recording of its flora 
of the flowers grown in Japan are natives 
of China and favorites with the Chinese 
people. Bamboo and Wistaria are com¬ 
mon to both countries, but of indigenous 
plants appreciated by the Japanese there 
are Cherries, Maples, Azaleas, Iris, Pines, 
CHARLES MARIES (Died 1902) 
One of the many collectors sent out by that 
farsighted and famous nursery house, James 
Veitch & Sons. During his three years in the 
Orient (1877-1880) Maries sent back many 
plants such as the now well-known Primula 
obconica, Hamamelis mollis, Abies Veitchii, 
etc. The latter part of his life he spent in India 
as Superintendent of the Gwalior State Gardens 
broken and rugged, plains of any size are 
almost wanting except such as have been 
made by ashes ejected from the major 
volcanoes. The alluvial flats and valleys 
are highly cultivated, but land suitable for 
agriculture is insufficient to supply the 
101 
