Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



grounds is the Chinese magnolia, called yulan, stand- 

 ing a hundred feet from the Webster statue, near the 

 Seventy-second Street entrance, West. The first view 

 of the tree in full bloom fills one with amazement. 

 Winter's bleakness is everywhere, for it is now only 

 the latter part of April, and the tree is entirely leafless ; 

 but its whole figure is a mass of pure, delicious white, 

 beneath which every branch is hidden. But, quite 

 as remarkable as the total effect, is the individual 

 blossom, for its purity, texture, and elegance; coarse 

 fibre is usual in objects that are adequate for long per- 

 spective, but not so in the yulan ; its blossom is as su- 

 perb in detail as in its thousand -fold aggregation — a 

 cluster of eight large, thick petals, cream-white and de- 

 liciously fragrant, surrounding a yellow axis that ripens 

 into fruit. If the rose ever abdicates her queenly throne 

 I know of no blossom so eligible as this for the royal 

 succession. When I first saw the tree, in the zenith of 

 its beauty, I asked permission of a policeman to go on 

 the grass to examine it closely ; of course he refused — 

 how else could he show his authority, and what are 

 policemen for, except to thwart your wishes — but either 

 he was not made of the right stuff, or expected a good 

 " tip " from a poor naturalist, for he at last consented, 

 with the injunction to '* come right back," which I did, 

 when I got ready ; and when I told him what the tree 

 was, he repHed, '' Well, you call it a Chinese magnolia, 

 but / have been telling everybody that asked me about 

 it for the last ten years that it was a flowering dog- 

 wood'' (.^). As the blossom of the dogwood is to the 

 yulan' s something as a Methodist chapel is to Solomon's 



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