group. They are shrubby plants which often attain the proportions of trees. 

 Their growth is slow and their habit somewhat formal because of their upright, 

 nonspreading form of growth. Several species have small, handsome flowers 

 which add to their attractiveness in the spring. They are easily cultivated 

 and make handsome single specimens on lawns, besides being very effective 

 in grouping. 



VICTORIAN BOX 



Victorian box (Pittosporum undulatum), although often trimmed ror a 

 hedge, reaches a height of forty feet as a tree. It has rich green wavy-margined 

 leaves, and fragrant whitish flowers in terminal clusters followed by showy 

 yellow berries. It is used as an avenue tree in southern California because 

 of the beauty of the foliage and the odor of the blossoms which resemble those 

 of the orange. 



NARROW-LEAVED PITTOSPORUM 



Narrow-leaved pittosporum (Pittosporum phillyraeoides) has slender 

 drooping branches, giving it the same habit as the weeping willow. The leaves 

 are long and narrow and the flowers yellow and fragrant. It is a native of the 

 deserts of Australia and is thoroughly adapted to dry situations in California. 

 It reaches a height of about thirty feet. 



POPLARS 



The poplars belong to the genus Populus, and as the name indicates 

 have a wide popularity for planting on account of the ease with which they 

 are propagated and the rapidity of their growth. The genus embraces 

 some twenty-five species of which eleven are found in North America. In 

 the extreme north there are great forests of poplars and they are also found 

 abundantly all through the northern hemisphere particularly along stream 

 courses. 



Many of the species contain fragrant balsam in the buds which is ac- 

 counted for in a Grecian myth. The story goes that Jupiter, angry at Phaethon 

 for his reckless driving of the Chariot of the Sun, hurled him into the river 

 Po where he was drowned. His unhappy sisters, the Heliades, mourning his 

 fate upon the river bank, were changed into poplars, and their tears into its 

 balsam. 



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