101 



and graded into the present wide avenue, known as Tre- 

 mont street, so that now scarcely a vestige remains of its 

 former shrubby and umbrageous growth ; even its once 

 expressive name may soon be lost unless perpetuated by 

 this institution, whose trust it is to guard and preserve 

 our local history, whether territorial, social, or in what- 

 ever sense the same may be insignial. So prolific in 

 shrubs and plants were the borders of this way that it is 

 not too much to say that a careful description of the dif- 

 ferent species there found would make a respectable 

 botanical work, embracing as it did a fair portion of the 

 flora of New England. % 



When first remembered by the writer there hung 

 around its sombre name a vague regret of traditional 

 derivation, that its deepest shades and choicest recesses, 

 homes of the rarer floral congeners, had in a degree 

 already departed ; sire and matron of the olden time 

 told a like story of its shady borders and abundant floral 

 productions. This narrow lane was formerly undoubt- 

 edly bordered with trees of native growth, whose inter- 

 lacing branches once shut out the sun, and suggested the 

 appropriate name it so long bore. At the time of which 

 we write the trees had nearly all disappeared, with the 

 exception of an occasional Locust or Wild Cherry, 

 while in their stead grew a wide and exuberant hedge of 

 overhanging shrubbery, which so crowded " upon the 

 narrow cart-way that with vain regrets we often witnessed 

 the cropping of its margin by the neighboring farmers, to 

 save its wasting effect upon loads of hay carted through 

 from contiguous grounds. 



This deep hedge of shrubbery, tangling vines and tall 

 herbaceous plants, grew on either side for many a rod of 

 the way, quite up to the single line of cart ruts made in 

 the centre, extending also in many places as far beyond 



