Japanese Cherries
Year: 1916
Type: article
Abstract: Japanese Cherries.The publication by the Arboretum of an illustrated book on Japanese Cherries by E, H. Wilson greatly increases our knowledge of these plants and will lead, it is believed, to their more general cultivation in this country.Mr. Wilson has recently passed a year in Japan where he was sent by the Arboretum to solve many problems which have long perplexed students of the Japanese flora, and especially to study the character and distribution of the Japanese Cherry-trees and the origin and peculiarities of the numerous forms which are cultivated by the Japanese and which have made Japanese gardens famous.Mr. Wilson succeeded in seeing the ten Japanese species in their native forests and all the principal collections of the garden forms.The introduction into the Arboretum of plants of all the species and of seventy different named garden varieties is one of the results of this journey.Mr. Wilson states in his introduction that, although American and European gardeners have been importing Japanese flowering Cherries for half a century, scarcely one good-sized healthy tree can be found in this country or in Europe.These varieties are double-flowered or otherwise abnormal and therefore can only be propagated by grafting, and a choice of the right stock on which to graft them is important.The plants imported from Japan are all grafted on the variety Mazakura of Prunus Lannesiana which is a poor short-lived tree particularly subject to the attacks of scale and boring insects.It is used as stock by the Japanese because it can be quickly and cheaply raised from cuttings.In Europe and the United States one of the European Cherries has been used as stock for the Japanese varieties and on this they have succeeded no better
DOI: 10.5962/p.320465
Language: English
Subfield: Plant Science
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4236013916