HISTORY SACRED AND PROFANE 87 



grace, tufted with pink blossoms in June, lacking only fragrance to 

 rival the unrivaled apple blossom. With restraint removed they 

 thrust with added force upward and downward their long graceful 

 branches. Grown thus, once seen they can never be forgotten. 

 Thunbergii berberis, which sometimes shrinks under the pruning 

 knife, is a flaming torch in the autumn, and passes through the 

 insect onslaught unscathed, as does the Vibernum plicatum, with its 

 globular snow-white bloom, while the flowers of its American cousin 

 no sooner begin to open than the petals are badly eaten and stained. 



In the Rosa rugosa from Japan, was found another seemingly 

 insect-proof plant. Even when not in bloom its fresh luxuriant foliage 

 and later scarlet haws were a delight to the eye. 



The scope of the arboretum constantly widened until it com- 

 passed a great variety. Hundreds of grouped plantings showed in 

 their season masses of vivid color. The azalea, garbed in carmine and 

 orange; the rhododendron, with evergreen foliage and large blossoms 

 of varied colors, and peonies and dahlias, practically fungi-immune 

 plants giving glorious color and form effects single, double, starred 

 and threaded, and well worth wider cultivation vied with each other 

 to brighten our floral realm, while in late summer came the big heads 

 of hydrangeas of roseate hue, which when cut and dried far surpass 

 in beauty the everlasting, that "posy" of childhood. 



From trees and shrubs to grasses is a wide leap, as they 

 creep upward from the low, straggly, witch-grass-rooted variegated 

 ribbon grass to the stately waving plumes of the Erianthus ravennae 

 or the more tender King Henry of Navarre white plumed pampas 

 grass. The evergreen, Bambusa metake, rarely grown, but of great 

 merit, its pinnated leaves forming a mass of verdure both summer 

 and winter, carpeted several low, damp and unsightly spots, while 

 from Japan we had the cross-striped Eulalia, the Zebrina japonica 

 varigata, that plant that disproves the sometimes accepted theory 

 that variation of color is a symptom of debility as it is painfully healthy 

 from deepest rootlet to highest leaf tip. The Arundo donax varigata 

 needing winter protection is far more striking than the plain green 

 variety, and with its corn-like growth o'ertops and contrasts well with 

 the reed-like waving leaves of the Eulalia gracillima. We leaned 

 strongly toward variegated plants, from the Euonymous radicans var, 

 and the graceful variegated kerria, one of the most striking shrubs, 

 up through sturdy weigela, dogwood, forsythia, althea and privet, 

 represented in the tree line by a towering, spotted, acuba ash, seem- 

 ingly a giant croton, and maples galore. 



History, Sacred and Profane. 



Many a page of history, both sacied and profane, can be read 

 in the arboretum. Yonder is the massed purple bloom of the Judas 

 tree (the Cercis), and near it the Japanese variety of the same, 

 which has a closer blossom and richer hue. Next grows the bitter 



