an ennobling and uplifting of the spirit. Let those who 

 walk here forget the pomp and splendor of fashion 

 and display and in humility lose themselves in the 

 contemplation of the enduring beauty of the Creator's 

 handiwork in noble and stately trees. 



But let us begin our ramble. We will start with 

 the Walk at the right of the Mall itself, leading off 

 from Shakespeare's Statue. Near its first fork, on 

 your left, you will find several well grown hackberries, 

 called also sugarberry trees or nettle trees. You can 

 identify them by the warty ridges and rough, knotty- 

 looking excrescences on their trunks, especially marked 

 about the part nearest the ground. The hackberry 

 has also a peculiar habit of bunching its smaller branch- 

 lets in very conspicuous and odd-looking masses which 

 at once suggest the presence of a bird's nest in the 

 tree. This is very noticeable in autumn and winter. 

 But if these are not enough to identify it, its long, 

 pointed, egg-shaped, rather lop-sided leaves set alter- 

 nately on the branch will no doubt fix it for you, or 

 perhaps you may see the small, roundish berries swing- 

 ing singly on stems about an inch long, from the axils 

 of the leaves. These berries, through the summer, are 

 of a greenish-brown, but turn to purple in September, 

 when they are ripe. They are about a quarter of an 

 inch in diameter. The hackberry blooms early in May, 

 very inconspicuously, in small, yellowish-green flowers 

 which you scarcely notice, unless looking for them. 

 The tree belongs to the nettle family. 



Just east of the hackberries, in the bend of the left 

 fork here, is spicebush, and a little beyond it Judas 



