OPENING LEAVES 
“Thou, nature, art my goddess: to thy law 
My services are bound: wherefore should I 
Stand to the plague of custom ?” 
—SHAKESPEARE. 
UR field of observation in the following pages is 
practically the entire Northeastern States. The 
record is in no sense local, except as the chosen 
background of the pictorial account is the most representa- 
tive and extensive collection of our finest native and for- 
eign growth, arranged for landscape effect, that is to be 
found in the country—the famous Central Park, of New 
York City. 
This small and definite area not only affords a splendid 
concrete example of landscape vegetation for the thou- 
sands annually traversing it, but is so illustrative of every 
phase of hardy, deciduous, and evergreen growth at home 
and abroad as to afford ample opportunity for discussing 
the entire range of native vegetation in tree, shrub, and 
vine, from Maine to North Carolina, and west to the 
Mississippi, and the abundant decorative species from 
Europe and Asia, that are now figuring so conspicuously 
in all our private lawns and gardens. 
This is the first time that a description of all the trees, 
shrubs, and vines in Central Park has been presented to 
the public. The nearest approach to it was a botanical 
I 
