Shrubs and Vines 



Currants add a small quota to the embellishment of a 

 lawn. Passing over the sorts that are cultivated for 

 fruit, and whose flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, 

 a few species are desirable on the score of beauty, par- 

 ticularly the Missouri or golden currant (Ribes aureum)^ 

 bearing small but very pretty yellow flowers with spicy 

 fragrance in late spring ; its yellow fruit also is not 

 to be despised. Another kind, sangmneum, has bright 

 red and yellow flowers in midsummer, with a variety 

 producing double flowers, but on account of its early 

 bloom the Missouri is the more popular. 



As a thing of beauty there is little to commend in 

 our American hazel-nut, and the European species in 

 its original form has no advantage over our own ; but 

 two "sports" of the European really belong to the 

 class of decorative plants. One of them has cut-leaved 

 foliage that gives beauty to almost any type ; but the 

 most important is the purple-leaved hazel-nut, unique 

 for its almost black foliage in spring and summer, 

 perhaps the nearest approach to black that is to be 

 found in vegetation, much darker than in the purple- 

 leaved beech, thus making it conspicuous amid any and 

 all surroundings ; but the color largely " burns off " by 

 fall, when it would be easily mistaken for our own spe- 

 cies. For strong yet not inartistic punctuation of a 

 landscape nothing is finer, as the contrast is as pleasing 

 as it is curious. 



A considerable portion of the Park's white adornings 

 in June comes from that important genus in the honey- 

 suckle family known as viburnum, containing several 

 species with a showy profusion of bloom, largely native, 



i37 



