II. 



THE BALL GROUND AND VICINITY. 



As you enter the Park at the Seventh Avenue Gate, 

 Fifty-ninth Street, the flash and luster of privet meets 

 you on both sides of the Walk. Bedded in with it, 

 on the right, about half way between the street and 

 the little guard house by the Walk, you will see a 

 fine bush of the Lonicera fragrantissima, which you 

 have met before. Then, still on your right, you pass 

 a good-sized horsechestnut, with large gummy buds 

 in winter. About half way between this tree and the 

 cross-walk beyond, stands a healthy English elm, and 

 at the corner of the cross-walk a couple of very hand- 

 some copper beeches. You will know these easily by 

 their short trunks, light granite-gray bark, horizontal 

 branches with pointed cigar-shaped buds and toothless 

 hairy-margined (ciliate) leaves, copper-colored in early 

 spring and early summer. Later in the season these 

 leaves burn off their fires and grow softly bronze green. 



In passing the English elm spoken of below I hope 

 you noted the large handsome sugar-loaf or haystack- 

 shaped tree which stands a little to the east and south 

 of the English elm. This tree is a handsome specimen 

 of the European silver linden. Note its beautiful, 

 smooth, steel-gray, rounded branches rising like pipes 

 from the short thick-set trunk and ending in fine sprays 

 of twigs which fret the winter sky with a beauty all 



