RARE AND NOTABLE PLANTS 



was an immense buttonwood with a 

 trunk liaving a diameter of 5 feet; 

 another was a weeping willow (salix 

 babylonica) located near the spring- 

 house, and others were a large horse- 

 chestnut which shaded the front of 

 Kurtz house, and a large linden (tilia 

 Americana) once prominent on the 

 street before the door of Melchior 

 Meng. Many doubtless may recall 

 Meng's house as "Oliver Jester's tin 

 shop," until a few years ago standing 

 on Vernon's southern front. 



Old gardens, and the grapes of 

 which Pastorius wrote have gone, but 

 we have in new Germantown, gardens 

 superior to any of olden time, and I 

 warrant the 8-inch diameter grape 

 vine-trunks of middle Wissahickon are 

 equal to any the "founder" ever saw. So, 

 too, the two gardens of Dr. Christo- 

 pher Witt are no more, and there is 

 nothing surviving to suggest them. 



On the Geissler-Warner tract, part 

 of which was also once occupied by 

 Dr. Witt, whereon also he had his first 

 garden, stands St. Michael's P. E. 

 Church, and on its rear chancel wall 

 is an ivy recently re-planted by E. A. 

 Frey. This plant, carefully trans- 

 ferred from a former position, is a 



75 



