Evergreen shrubs with opposite leaves, dioecious tetramerous small purplish paniculate flowers, and 1-celled 1-seeded drupaceous fruits. The Japanese name.

1. A. Himalaica. - This is very near, and perhaps only a variety of the following species, differing mainly in the longer petioles and distant blunt tumid teeth of the leaves, and in having spherical (not oblong) berries. The foliage is ample and effective. We are not aware that there are any variegated forms of this. The male only is in cultivation.

2. A. Japonica, var. maculata. - The mottled leaves of this variety have long formed one of the most familiar objects in cultivation; but the scarlet berries are still comparatively rare, in consequence of the absence until recently of male plants. The normal green-leaved form has also been introduced; and there are already nearly a score of different varieties offered by nurserymen, differing in the form or variegation of the leaf. The following are some of the new varieties. Male varieties : picta, bicolor, sulphurea, and ovdta, with variegated foliage; and vera and grdndis, with green foliage. Female varieties : sulphurea, aurea margindta, and latimaculdta, with variegated leaves; and longifolia, luteocarpa, vera, and angusti-fdlia, with green leaves.