Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



It is difficult to conceive of a more extraordinary, deli- 

 cate, and beautiful shrub than the Tamarix, or Tama- 

 risk. It is an exclusively foreign genus, and it can truly 

 be said, there is nothing more charmingly singular in the 

 Park than the few specimens scattered here and there. 

 The finest is the African, its lithe, willowy branches 

 literally buried in the countless tiny blossoms of early 

 spring before a leaf appears. Yet the climax is not in 

 the bloom, but in the full-foliaged effect, its million 

 leaves as minute as the lobes of the most delicate fern, 

 making the entire shrub a misty mass of translucent 

 green, too ethereal for description. The first view of 

 such an one as is found in the " Ramble " can only be 

 greeted with an exclamation. This will seem fulsome 

 praise only to those who have never beheld the plant, 

 and are not imaginative enough to picture it. Nature 

 was in her most poetic mood when she devised the 

 African tamarisk, and when she came out of it she fell 

 to making the Jersey scrub pine and persimmon. 



Within a few years a unique type of foliage ornamen- 

 tation has come into great favor, in the curious, finely 

 cut, and richly tinted leaves of Japanese maples — shrubs 

 in size but arboreal in figure, and forming one of the 

 most delightful contributions of that favored land to our 

 Western sylva. From the leaf one would never dream 

 that these were maples, but the winged fruit is an un- 

 mistakable sign of kinship to our popular species. The 

 blossom, as a rule, is an inconspicuous feature in these, 

 as in European and most American maples, but the 

 pink flower oi Acer japonicum is very pretty. A species 

 becoming widely cultivated is A. polymorphum, with a 



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