Prof. Sargent tells the Gardeners' Chronicle :

" Mr. W. S. Clark, at that time president of the Agricultural College at Sapporo, in Japan, sent to the Arboretum, in the autumn of 1876, seeds of an Oleaceous plant described by him as a small tree. The plants raised from these seeds flowered last summer for the first time, and proved to be Syringa japonica, a species well described and figured by Decaisne in his Monograph of Ligustrum and Syringa, and a native of both Nippon and Yesso.

"Syringa japonica has grown in cultivation with great vigor and rapidity, and already forms a small tree, 15 or 16 feet in height, with a clean straight stem covered with thin, very smooth, rather light-colored red bark, resembling that of a young Cherry tree. The small white flowers, almost entirely destitute of perfume, are borne in immense compound panicles, 18 - 24 inches long, and 16 - 18 inches broad. The plant flowers very freely here during the first week in July, and remains a long time in bloom.

"The leaves, unlike those of many Japanese plants in this climate, fall early and without changing color; they are 5 or 6 inches long, acuminate, cuneate at the base, coriaceous, strongly reticulate-veined, quite smooth above, the midrib and primary veins slightly pubescent beneath.

"This Japanese Lilac promises to be one of the most magnificent of all flowering trees hardy in this climate. It is perfectly hardy; it grows with great rapidity, and promises to attain a considerable size; and it has the advantage of blooming here after the flowering period of most trees and shrubs has passed".