Shrubs and Vines 



mend it, except in late spring when covered with a pro- 

 fusion of very small yellow flowers. 



The prevailing colors of flowers are white, red, and 

 yellow; blue and purple figure very little in nature's 

 painting ; so that the genus Amorpha, containing two 

 or three species in the Park, is at least a novelty, with 

 its indigo blossoms, whose form having but one petal 

 must be accounted as a caprice or a negligence of 

 nature; it is abnormal, amorphic, according to our 

 limited interpretation of law. 



The leaf, as so commonly in the great leguminose 

 family to which the amorpha belongs, is pinnate with 

 numerous leaflets, the number in one species sometimes 

 not less than fifty- one. The flowers are small, but 

 repay examination, not only for their oddity, but for 

 the mingling of purple and yellow in petal and stamens ; 

 while their aggregation in numerous erect spikes affords 

 a rich yet sombre effect. Thanks are due to any plant 

 that blossoms quite early or quite late ; and one species 

 of Amorpha, called the lead-plant, is the more accept-, 

 able in bloom for delaying the matter till August. 



The prominent feature of the genus Euonymus is its 

 bright red pods, which so envelop the plant in autumn as 

 to give it the apt name of burning-bush. A more matter- 

 of-fact name is spindle- tree, afforded by the utility of its 

 wood in the manufacture of spindles. Our two native 

 species are in the Park, with the addition of the Euro- 

 pean in two or three varieties. The purple or purplish- 

 white flowers have no marked beauty. A shrub partic- 

 ularly handsome in its glossy evergreen foliage is the 

 Euonymus japonicus, which is quite hardy, at least as 



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