VIII Blossomed Boughs 



THERE is more convenience than accuracy in the 

 use of the term " flowering trees," or flowering 

 shrubs, in the gardener's sense. The oak and the 

 yew are as much flowering trees as the cherry or the 

 laburnum ; yet we habitually put those trees which 

 make a free display with their blossoms into a separ- 

 ate mental class, and it is almost a necessity to have 

 an easily understood term to describe them. The 

 brakes and woods of Britain have been strikingly 

 well endowed by nature with wild trees and shrubs 

 of this kind. Few of the foreign flowering species 

 which from time to time have been acclimatized in 

 our gardens excel in beauty our native gorse, broom, 

 apple, cherry, hawthorn, or wild rose ; and, so far 

 from the rarity of these plants being equal in 

 measure to their beauty, most of them are among the 

 most abundant and widely spread species in the 

 British flora. 



Very early in the springtime the arbitrary nature 

 of the distinction between flowering and other trees 

 begins to show itself in English fields. No one 

 would naturally include the elm among flowering 

 trees ; yet many elms assume a beauty of blossom 

 in March and early April which richly entitles them 

 to the name. When strong sunlight falls upon the 

 still leafless crown of the elm, it kindles a crimson 

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