Trees, Shrubs and Vincs 
is the more northerly, where it strongly punctuates the 
forests with its bole of chalky white; it is of larger 
growth than the white birch, which is the pride of the 
family, with its languid elegance of form and careless 
grace, 
“« The Lady of the forest,” 
as Tennyson calls it, and at all times beautiful. In 
winter, when its tangled mass of fine twigs fashion lace- 
like designs upon the sky; in spring, when thickly 
hung with long, bright yellow aments; and in summer, 
when its tapering, lustrous leaves array the tree in foli- 
age almost as light as gossamer—in each successive sea- 
son one finds new pleasure in this slight figure that in 
exquisite refinement rivals all other native growth. It 
lacks the vigor and positiveness of many other trees, yet 
I believe that if all the white birches were eliminated 
from the Park, it would mar the scenery more than the 
loss of any other one species. Nature has certainly 
realized one of her ideals in the weeping cut-leaved 
birch, that sways in every lightest breeze, a fountain of 
green spray. Several fine examples can be seen a little 
beyond the northwest corner of the ‘* Ramble.’’ 
THORN-TREES.—No family of small trees fills so large 
a place in landscape-gardening, through the combined 
merits of fine foliage, notable bloom, and attractive 
winter-ornamentation, as our thorn-trees, comprising 
the cockspur, white, black, evergreen, and the famous 
English hawthorn which is now beginning to be natural- 
ized. They are all of low growth, often shrubby, filling 
a niche far too small for cottonwood, linden, or locust, 
88 
