164 



LANDSCAPE DESIGN 



Plant 

 Character 



Species and 

 Character 



a peculiarly unpleasant kind of monotonous confusion.* Similarly in 

 the case of early spring flowering shrubs, it is well to arrange them 

 in sufficiently large groups so that they may be noticeable from 

 a distance and that the individual flowers may blend in a considerable 

 mass of color. The effect of bright color of flower may be obtained quite 

 as much by a close massing of the flowers as by their individual bright 

 color. A plant which bears a profusion of flowers all at the same height 

 and concealing the foliage, like some of the dwarf marigolds, or moss 

 pink, or cineraria will be very striking on this account. Where it is 

 desirable that certain portions of a flower-planting be brought out 

 in sunshine against others in shade, this effect may be accented by using 

 yellow and red flowers in the sun, but purple and blue flowers in the 

 shade. Almost the maximum possible contrasts of color and value 

 may be so produced.! 



Plants are recognized as different in species according to the inherent 

 tendency each has under all circumstances to have certain characteristics 

 of parts and to have those parts arranged in a certain way. This is 

 true not only of the arrangements of flower and seed which mean so 

 much to the systematic botanist, but also of the larger physical rela- 

 tions of more immediate esthetic importance, for instance, the growth 

 of the trunk of a tree, the arrangement and set of its branches, the 

 grouping of its boughs and leaves. In many cases this racial trait will 

 manifest itself in a typical shape by which any individual of the species 

 may be known ; in other cases the typical shape may be departed 

 from owing to individual circumstances, but there still remains the 

 general character, which has on the observer a more or less definite 



* " Variety, of which the true end is to relieve the eye, not to perplex it, does not 

 consist in the diversity of separate objects, but in that of their effects when combined 

 together ; in diversity of composition, and of character. Many think, however, they 

 have obtained that grand object, when they have exhibited in one body all the hard 

 names of the Linnaean system ; but when as many different plants as can well be got 

 together, are exhibited in every shrubbery, or in every plantation, the result is a same- 

 ness of a different kind, but not less truly a sameness, than would arise from there 

 being no diversity at all ; for there is no having variety of character, without a certain 

 distinctness, without certain marked features on which the eye can dwell." 



Price, Essays on the Picturesque^ 1810, v. i, p. 286-287. 



t Cf. Flower beds, p. 176 ff. 



