Trees for Shade and Ornament 207 



the best known and tested, and a few less known but com- 

 mendable ones. 



To become acquainted with such a large amount of 

 material some kind of classiiication is desirable. Since, from 

 the ornamental point of view, the character of the foliage is 

 a more important consideration than the fruit (although the 

 latter is used in botanical classification), it has seemed desir- 

 able to make it the basis for sequence in our enumeration. 



The trees with needle-shaped leaves coincide with the 

 botanical family of conifers, and we have grouped them 

 under common generic or family names in alphabetical 

 sequence. 



The broad-leaf trees could be grouped, from the orna- 

 mental point of view, under trees with simple leaves, and 

 those with compound leaves, and each of these two groups 

 might be again, with less precision, grouped into large-leaved 

 and small-leaved trees. Size, to be sure, can only be a 

 relative measure, in a general way accentuating the relative 

 leaf-value of the different groups, and the impression of 

 coarser or finer effects of foliage. Since, however, many 

 genera contain species with large and small leaves, which 

 would require that they be separated and much of the infor- 

 mation duplicated, we have preferred to restrict the classi- 

 fication into those with compound and those with simple 

 leaves and give under each a Hst in alphabetical order of 

 the genera by Latin names with cross references from the 

 common names; discussing under the genus points of sim- 

 ilarity in ornamental value, the characteristics and require- 

 ments which are in common; and giving under the species 

 only the distinctive features. 



The buyer of plant material from nurseries will find great 

 variation in the names given to various trees in different 

 catalogues; indeed, even the botanists have not vet come to 



