Trees, Shrubs and Vines 



is the more northerly, where it strongly punctuates the 

 forests with its bole of chalky white ; it is of larger 

 growth than the white birch, which is the pride of the 

 family, with its languid elegance of form and careless 

 grace, 



" The Lady of the forest," 



as Tennyson calls it, and at all times beautiful. In 

 winter, when its tangled mass of fine twigs fashion lace- 

 like designs upon the sky ; in spring, when thickly 

 hung with long, bright yellow aments ; and in summer, 

 when its tapering, lustrous leaves array the tree in foli- 

 age almost as light as gossamer in each successive sea- 

 son one finds new pleasure in this slight figure that in 

 exquisite refinement rivals all other native growth. It 

 lacks the vigor and positiveness of many other trees, yet 

 I believe that if all the white birches were eliminated 

 from the Park, it would mar the scenery more than the 

 loss of any other one species. Nature has certainly 

 realized one of her ideals in the weeping cut-leaved 

 birch, that sways in every lightest breeze, a fountain of 

 green spray. Several fine examples can be seen a little 

 beyond the northwest corner of the " Ramble." 



THORN-TREES. No family of small trees fills so large 

 a place in landscape-gardening, through the combined 

 merits of fine foliage, notable bloom, and attractive 

 winter-ornamentation, as our thorn-trees, comprising 

 the cockspur, white, black, evergreen, and the famous 

 English hawthorn which is now beginning to be natural- 

 ized. They are all of low growth, often shrubby, filling 

 a niche far too small for cottonwood, linden, or locust, 



88 



