Wood Notes 
scopic size, too, is the blossom of the million-flowered 
African tamarix, a unique and superb shrub, handsomely 
represented in the Park in many places, and worthy of 
cultivation in every lawn; and as the most familiar 
instance of minute organisms aggregating into most 
brilliant masses of color, may be mentioned the count- 
less spiry panicles of our commonest autumn weed, the 
golden-rod. But, although the sum-total is the greatest 
of all in this widely distributed weed and in the asters, 
the most impressive instance, to me, of nature’s floral 
lavishness, is in the full bloom of a lofty, wide-spread- 
ing chestnut late in June, whitened with its thousands 
of long catkins, every catkin crowded thick with blos- 
soms. The sense of nature’s opulence sometimes be- 
comes oppressive. 
a 
Of the multitudinous flower-types disclosed by the 
study of botany, the one adopted for the rose family 
seems to be nature’s favorite, since both in flower and 
fruit that family has such commanding pre-eminence 
throughout the earth. Besides numberless varieties of 
the acknowledged queen of flowers, we have in this 
family group the wild apple, wild black cherry, black 
haw, shadbush, sweet viburnum, mountain-ash, Japa- 
nese quince, English hawthorn, cockspur thorn, black 
thorn, etc., with the many beautiful spirzas, all nota- 
ble for inflorescence. Note also the fact that all our 
choice large and small fruits are from the rose family— 
peach, pear, apple, apricot, quince, cherry, plum, black- 
berry, raspberry, and sams pareil the strawberry—what 
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