Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



grouping will assist the memory in recalling the species. 

 Summarized, the classification is as follows : 



Deciduous Trees : non-amentaceous : 



Ornamental Flowering 44 



Inconspicuous Flowering 41 



Deciduous Trees : amentaceous : 



Nut-fruited - 29 



Seed-fruited 29 



Evergreen Trees : cone-bearing 20 



The characteristics of all these species will receive 

 attention in other chapters. 



Botanists, in their eagerness to get the name of a 

 plant, seldom pay any regard to the leaf, except as it 

 helps to identify the species ; generally they hardly stop 

 to admire even the blossom (if there be any left after 

 pulling several to pieces to find the structure). Money- 

 misers are not the only misers; botanists are misers, in 

 their mad haste to add another and another to their 

 growing list of species, taking no real enjoyment in 

 what they have already accumulated. This is no slan- 

 der ; I have been a botanist, and know the fever of ac- 

 quisition. 



A leaf is the whole tree in miniature : stem, midrib, 

 lateral veins and veinlets — the leafs skeleton — are mi- 

 nute copies of trunk, branch, and twig, and the chloro- 

 phyll is the foliage. This is one of the unities of nature, 

 showing the massive elm and its tiniest leaf modelled 

 alike. Of all the variable features of a leaf none con- 

 tributes so much to the beauty of foliage as the fringing 

 of its edge, as in the maple, birch, and elm, which in th^ 



26 



