Shrubs and Vines 



nothing more is heard of it ; rose after rose has been the 

 favorite of an hour, only to be supplanted by another 

 short-lived favorite. The naturalist, as such, will not 

 concern himself with these ephemeral phenomena, that 

 almost cheapen nature's original simplicity and beauty. 

 Yet it is undeniable that art has often assisted nature, by 

 bringing inferior species into a finer quality of growth, 

 and it is a difficult question at what point art must leave 

 nature alone ; for horticulturists are vying with each 

 other in attempts to transform every stamen into a petal, 

 and every simple flower-cluster into a huge mass of 

 bloom, so that catalogues are now thickly sprinkled with 

 flore pleno and grandiflora. 



That section of the rose family that furnishes our 

 choicest fruits — apple, cherry, peach, plum — and com- 

 prised in the genera Prunus and Pyrus, is usually re- 

 garded as utilitarian rather than ornamental, or at least, 

 as not meeting the high standards of lawn culture. But 

 by the improvement of certain native species, with the 

 introduction of choice kinds from abroad, the names of 

 cherry, apple, etc., are becoming associated with our 

 most ornamental sylva and flora. This is signally the 

 case in the Chinese crab and the Japanese flowering 

 apple, the latter a pigmy tree only five to six feet high, 

 profusely covered with beautiful red blossoms in spring, 

 and scarcely less interesting when the flowers are fol- 

 lowed by an abundance of diminutive apples. One 

 writer calls it *' the most beautiful of its race, and one 

 of the best ornamental plants in cultivation." It is 

 thoroughly hardy, and has a variety with semi-double 

 flowers. The Chinese crab, Pyrus nialus spectabilis, is 



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