6 LONDON TREES 



in still, warm weather and endanger the lives of 

 visitors to our public parks and gardens. 



Where plenty of space is available, as in our 

 parks and open spaces, or by the Thames Embank- 

 ment, by all means plant the Plane and other trees of 

 noble growth, but where the streets are narrow and 

 the gardens small the dwarf -growing trees are to be re- 

 commended. Many examples of large-growing trees 

 planted within a few yards of shops and houses could 

 be pointed out, such as along Shaftesbury Avenue, 

 Gray's Inn and Charing Cross Roads, at Crickle- 

 wood and Stratford, the inevitable result being that 

 already heavy pruning and beheading have become 

 a necessity, the natural beauty of the trees has been 

 destroyed, and, worse still, a repetition of the lopping 

 at stated periods must be engaged in. 



For ten or a dozen years after being planted these 

 trees are everything that can be desired, but when 

 the boundary limit has been attained, the windows 

 darkened, the pedestrians on the footpath annoyed, 

 then comes the retribution, and the pruning-knife and 

 saw are brought into request, and the sapling tree 

 elbowed in and beheaded, with the usual result that ugly, 

 contorted, mop-headed excrescences are formed, and the 

 tree of beauty becomes a hideous mass of malformation. 



Amongst trees that have been found to succeed 

 well in London, deciduous are preferable to evergreen 

 kinds ; in fact, coniferous species, with perhaps one 

 or two exceptions, should be severely left alone in the 

 planting of our streets and squares. Though they 

 may survive in the open, native species or those that 

 have for long become naturalised, such as the Oak, 

 Sweet Chestnut, Beech, and Birch, are not suitable for 

 the smoke-infested parts of the City, foreign species, 



