45 



it and our native hornbeam. The fruit of the Amer- 

 ican species has the bracts of its fruit clusters lopped 

 off close, while the European has them very much 

 longer, giving the bract a halberd-shaped appearance. 

 Across the Bridge, a few feet further on, the Drive 

 Walk throws off an arm to the left. Let us go with it. 

 On your left, as you turn, is an English hawthorn, and 

 on your right, a good silver maple. The path runs 

 down a series of steps beside great masses of natural 

 rock in a most pleasing way. By the top step, at your 

 left, are dotted fruited hawthorn, sassafras and For- 

 sythia suspensa. The Forsythia is directly to the left 

 of the top step, the others are just east of the Forsythia. 

 The sassafras has heavy rough bark and leaves of three 

 different forms, mitten-shaped with the thumb on either 

 side of the leaf, or with both thumbs on one leaf, or 

 single lobeless leaves, without thumbs at all. The haw- 

 thorn has long thin thorns, wedge-obovate leaves of 

 light green and rather thin texture. Directly at the 

 right of the top step is pignut hickory. At the left 

 of the second step or series of steps is shagbark hickory, 

 and at the right of this step, standing side by side, 

 are two good persimmon trees. These, by their rough 

 heavy bark, might be mistaken for sassafras trees, 

 but their entire lobeless leaves (all of them) will save 

 you from this mistake. The persimmon carries a 

 flower that, to me, is very pretty, a small, pale yellow 

 or almost white, urn-shaped affair, very daintily turned. 

 The tree belongs to the Ebenacea or ebony family and 

 gets its name Diospyros from two Greek words mean- 

 ing Zeus's (Jupiter) fruit. At the third steps on your 



