THE LINDENS, ETC. 59 



American Crab The American crab apple is a tree 

 Apple. which I think is not fully appre- 



Pyrua coronaria. ciated _T meaDj ag a beautiful tree it 



is not planted enough in our parks and private 

 grounds, and as a fruit tree it is too often displaced 

 by some large-fruited apple. In one respect it ought 

 not to be considered with the common apple at all. 

 Its fruit makes a delicious preserve or jelly not to be 

 mentioned in the same breath with plebeian " apple- 

 sauce," as it possesses a pronounced and delicate flavor 

 of its own. 



The beautiful yellow-and-red fruit* in a good 

 season burdens the crab apple beyond the strength of 

 its supple boughs, and these must be braced up with 

 stanch poles if the owner would not see his tree 

 rent in sunder and its branches lying a mass of ruin 

 on the lawn. I call to mind a beautiful tree with 

 long, graceful branches extending clear to the ground, 

 which in May is a magnificent, gigantic bouquet of 

 large, fragrant pink blossoms, whose delicious per- 

 fume sometimes ladens the air fully three hundred 

 feet away. What a sight for a Japanese artist, and 

 what a treat for a Parisian perfumer ! But they 



* In the wild state the crab-apple fruit is greenish yellow. 

 Some trees I know of in cultivation bear fruit more or less cov- 

 ered with a bloom, so the yellow-and-red color beneath is not 

 brilliant until the plum-colored surface is rubbed off. 



