172 LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



completely expressed by an individual plant, tree, or shrub or flowering 

 plant as the case may be. Striking color may serve this purpose, for 

 example a purple beech, a golden retinispora, or an orange mass of 

 autumn helenium in flower; of itself, but also particularly in connec- 

 tion with striking form, a close and definite texture will serve, as for 

 example a clipped privet or a tree with naturally close-growing foliage 

 like a red cedar ; but most important of the characteristics which give 

 individuality to plants used in this way is shape. This individualizing 

 shape may be merely a simple and definite shape easily recognized. 

 This may be natural to the plant, like the broad-based conical shape 

 of a blue spruce, the rounded cone of an arbor vitse, the shaft of an 

 Irish juniper, or the spire of a Lombardy poplar. Or the definite shape 

 may be imposed by clipping or training, making the plant in effect an 

 architectural or sculptural object like a vase or a statue, such an object 

 as the trimmed evergreen pyramids or topiary peacocks of English 

 gardens, or the standard catalpa or standard weeping elm more com- 

 monly obtainable from American nurserymen. Other definite and 

 man-made foliage forms may be produced by growing vines on various 

 small free-standing shapes of lattice or post, such objects as for instance 

 a rose-wreathed pole crowned by a bird-house, or a trellis of any des- 

 ignated shape, perhaps standing free, though more often backed by a 

 wall and covered with a flowering vine. On the other hand, this in- 

 dividualizing form may be the expression of the character of the plant, 

 perhaps of its past history and associations, — as the gnarled growth of 

 an old apple tree, the picturesque attitude of a wind-blown cedar, 

 or the aspiring growth of a tall mullein ; or this natural expression 

 may be enhanced and guided by the hand of man, as in the trained 

 maples and evergreens of Japan. 



A "specimen" tree or shrub, then, is properly one which has enough 

 interesting characteristics to make it repay the attention which its 

 isolated situation inevitably brings upon it. Specimens however 

 should not be treated in landscape design, except perhaps rarely in 

 arboretums, merely as interesting objects in a museum : they should 

 bear their share in the esthetic organization of the whole composition. 

 (See the specimen evergreen in Plate 28.) A specimen may be so fine 

 a thing that it is worthy of a dominant position to which all else in 



