no LONDON TREES 



flowers freely in many London gardens, and seems 

 suitable for planting even where the atmosphere is 

 by no means pure. There are good examples of the 

 tree in the Royal Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park, 

 the Shakespeare Garden at Golder's Green, and many 

 other parts of London. The Regent's Park specimen 

 has attained to a large size, the stem girthing 4 feet 

 at a yard up, while the well-rounded head has a spread 

 25 feet in diameter. It flowers and produces fruit 

 in abundance. The Quince is a hardy, deciduous 

 tree, 18 to 20 feet high, with usually crooked branches 

 forming a bushy, spreading head, thickly clothed with 

 roundish-ovate pale-green leaves. It is a capital 

 town tree, and was introduced before 1573, as at that 

 date we learn from Gerard that it was often planted 

 in hedges and fences. 



The Quince is readily propagated by means of 

 layers or cuttings, the two modes usually adopted in 

 this country. Cuttings of well-ripened wood of the 

 current year put in light soil during August soon 

 strike root. Layers put down about the same time 

 root freely, and may soon be severed from the stem. 



The True Service Tree (P. Sorbus or domestica) in 

 foliage and general appearance approaches very nearly 

 to the Mountain Ash, but grows to a larger size and 

 bears much larger fruit. From the Mountain Ash it 

 is readily recognised in winter by the buds, which are 

 smooth and green instead of being of a dark grey 

 colour and slightly downy. The leaves are downy 

 both on the upper and under surfaces, and the fruit, 

 which is apple or pear shaped and of a dull greenish- 

 brown colour, about four times the size of that of 

 the Mountain Ash. 



The Pear (P. communis). Some of the largest and 

 healthiest Pear trees in the Metropolis are to be seen 



