REGENT'S PARK 103 



very short time inside the building, and after three 

 weeks' visit return to hospital. 



Of late years a considerable alteration has been 

 made in the arrangement of the beds in the flower- 

 garden of the Park, chiefly with a view to reducing 

 the bedding and yet obtaining a better eff^ect. Long 

 herbaceous borders have been substituted for one of the 

 rows of formal beds, requiring a constant succession 

 of plants. This has necessitated the removal of some 

 of the flowers shown in the view of this garden taken 

 in the spring. The loss of these is compensated by 

 the new arrangement of beds, separated from the Park 

 by a hedge and flowering shrubs. 



Very few of the old trees remain in Regent's Park ; 

 what became of them between the time when only a 

 portion were marked for the navy by Cromwell, and 

 the present day, there is no record as yet forthcoming. 

 Two elms near the flower-garden are, however, remark- 

 ably fine specimens, as the branches feather on to the 

 ground all round. A Paulownia tomentosa is well worthy 

 of notice. It must have been one of the earliest to 

 be planted in this country, and is a large spreading tree. 

 It stands on what is known as the Mound, near Chester 

 Gate. Nineteen years ago it flowered, and in the un- 

 usually warm autumn of 1906 it was covered with buds 

 of blossom, all ready to expand, when, alas ! the long- 

 delayed frost arrived in October, just too soon for 

 them to come to perfection. Not far from it is a 

 large tree of Cotoneaster frigida^ which has masses of 

 red berries every year. 



The railings of Regent's Park have always been of 

 timber, but it is now threatened to alter this survival 

 of the days when it first changed from Marylebone Farm. 



