On " The Point " — Second Excursion 



yet requiring something more positive than mere shrubs. 

 The thorns that grow freely on the branches, though 

 long, are no disfigurement, the tree's form is comely, 

 the leaf bright and healthy and clearly individualized 

 in the several species, the luxuriant bloom is one of the 

 attractions even of the month of flowers, and, as summer 

 wanes, the prodigal clusters of scarlet berries begin to 

 show themselves, gleaming through the russet autumn 

 leaves, a shower of ruddy drops against a winter's sky, 

 rivalling the mountain-ash and holly. The whole an- 

 nual career of a thorn-tree is a case of patient continu- 

 ance in well-doing, and it does not lose its reward in the 

 world's wide approbation. 



The middle of ^' The Point " becomes, early in June, 

 a broad sheet of white, which shows to best advantage 

 from the boat-house and the grand stairway of the Ter- 

 race, for here in one solid group are twenty-three cock- 

 spur thorns, one more, to make a round two dozen, 

 standing off by itself. But the paragon of thorns is the 

 red-flowered variety of the English hawthorn, which is 

 superb enough to warrant my giving its name in all its 

 pretentious fulness — Cratcegus oxyacantha flore plena 

 rosea. Among all the beauties scattered so profusely 

 throughout the Park, four will always recur to my mind 

 as perfectly unique — the gorgeous full bloom of the 

 yulan in the last of April, the pink-robed double-flow- 

 ered English hawthorn in June, the weeping willows 

 in early spring, and in fall the exquisite tamarix, that 

 marvel of green mist low lying on the ground, the most 

 vaporous exhalation of verdure to be seen in northern 

 latitudes. 



89 



