Wood Notes 



scopic size, too, is the blossom of the million-flowered 

 African tamarix, a unique and superb shrub, handsomely 

 represented in the Park in many places, and worthy of 

 cultivation in every lawn ; and as the most familiar 

 instance of minute organisms aggregating into most 

 brilliant masses of color, may be mentioned the count- 

 less spiry panicles of our commonest autumn weed, the 

 golden-rod. But, although the sum-total is the greatest 

 of all in this widely distributed weed and in the asters, 

 the most impressive instance, to me, of nature's floral 

 lavishness, is in the full bloom of a lofty, wide-spread- 

 ing chestnut late in June, whitened with its thousands 

 of long catkins, every catkin crowded thick with blos- 

 soms. The sense of nature's opulence sometimes be- 

 comes oppressive. 



Of the multitudinous flower-types disclosed by the 

 study of botany, the one adopted for the rose family 

 seems to be nature's favorite, since both in flower and 

 fruit that family has such commanding pre-eminence 

 throughout the earth. Besides numberless varieties of 

 the acknowledged queen of flowers, we have in this 

 family group the wild apple, wild black cherry, black 

 haw, shadbush, sweet viburnum, mountain-ash, Japa- 

 nese quince, English hawthorn, cockspur thorn, black 

 thorn, etc. , with the many beautiful spiraeas, all nota- 

 ble for inflorescence. Note also the fact that all our 

 choice large and small fruits are from the rose family 

 peach, pear, apple, apricot, quince, cherry, plum, black- 

 berry, raspberry, and sans pareil the strawberry what 



51 



