STREET TREES 193 



and Mountain Ash are all to be seen in the rudest of 

 health by Hillfield Road, Fortune Green, N.W. 



Most of the species of Pyrus are amongst the best 

 of street trees, where even in the most crowded dis- 

 tricts they thrive well and produce flowers and fruit 

 in abundance. Perhaps the best- known species is 

 the White Beam tree (P. Aria), with lobed leaves that 

 are thickly covered on the under sides with a close, 

 flocculent down, the flowers small and white, and the 

 fruit red or scarlet. The Mountain Ash or Rowan tree 

 (P. aucuparid) is too well known to require descrip- 

 tion, and whether for the sake of the dense corymbs 

 of small white flowers or large bunches of scarlet fruit 

 it is always welcomed and admired. It makes a neat 

 tree for the street side, and may frequently be found 

 there and in the front gardens of not a few sub- 

 urban districts. The True Service Tree (P. Sorbus 

 or domes tica) somewhat resembles the Mountain Ash, 

 but the flowers are panicled and the berries fewer, 

 larger, and pear-shaped. It is occasionally found as 

 a street and garden tree, very often in company with 

 the Wild Service Tree (P. Torminalis), which has ovate- 

 cordate leaves and small white flowers. Both may be 

 seen in good form in the Hampstead district. 



A variety that is found in several parts of London 

 was named P. intermedia by the Kew authorities. It 

 is well suited for town planting. The Sumach (Rhus 

 typhina) may sometimes be seen by the street side, 

 but it is not well suited for growing alone, the stem 

 usually being crooked and twisted, the leaves pinnate, 

 from 2 to 3 feet long, and usually produced in clusters 

 at the tree top ; frequently seen as a garden shrub 

 by the roadside, where it reproduces its kind freely by 

 extensions of the root. Both the Common and Black 



