SEPTEMBER. 



425 



and bend downwards in a less degree, and the whole tree is 

 comparatively trim. The other two species have a heavier 

 foliage, and a greater spread of the lateral branches. 



Had the old painters been familiar with the hickory, they 

 would have greatly admired it. The peculiarity of its shape is 

 remarkable ; and the breaks in its foliage yield it that variety 

 and irregularity of outline which are generally admired in 

 very old trees. While I am writing, directly before my 

 sight is a hickory, standing on an elevation that renders 

 the sky its only background. It is very tall and narrow in 

 its shape, and is divided into five distinct masses of foliage, 

 separated by a considerable space. Two of these masses are 

 on the right side, and three on the left — the highest mass 

 forming a flattened top, and projecting over the right side ; 

 while on the opposite side, it droops in a large flowing 

 drapery of leaves and branches. 



OUR ORNAMENTAL TREES. 

 by the editor. 



7. The Virgilia, or Yellow Wood. (Virgflia lutea, M.) 



The Virgilia is another of our forest trees, so rare out of 

 its native woods that few have ever seen a good sized speci- 

 men, and many scarcely know that such a tree exists. We 

 know of but three or four large trees in our neighborhood, 

 though there may be others. One of these is at the Botanic 

 Garden, Cambridge, Mass., and the other in the nursery 

 grounds of the late Messrs. Winship of Brighton, both flow- 

 ering abundantly every season. There are also fine trees in 

 the old Bartram Garden in Philadelphia, the largest of which 

 is fifty feet high. Even Loudon, usually very full and com- 

 plete in his history and description of the trees he enumerates, 

 devotes but a small space to the Virgilia. It does not appear 

 to grow rapidly in Great Britain, as the largest specimens he 

 mentions were only twenty-five feet high. Probably the 

 climate is too cool and moist. It was not introduced until 



VOL. XXI. NO. IX. 54 



