Shrubs and Vines 
Currants add a small quota to the embellishment of a 
lawn. Passing over the sorts that are cultivated for 
fruit, and whose flowers are greenish and inconspicuous, 
a few species are desirable on the score of beauty, par- 
ticularly the Missouri or golden currant (Aides aureum), 
bearing small but very pretty yellow flowers with spicy 
fragrance in late spring; its yellow fruit also is not 
to be despised. Another kind, sanguineum, has bright 
red and yellow flowers in midsummer, with a variety 
producing double flowers, but on account of its early 
bloom the Missouri is the more popular. 
As a thing of beauty there is little to commend in 
our American hazel-nut, and the European species in 
its original form has no advantage over our own; but 
two ‘‘sports’’ of the European really belong to the 
class of decorative plants. One of them has cut-leaved 
foliage that gives beauty to almost any type; but the 
most important is the purple-leaved hazel-nut, unique 
for its almost black foliage in spring and summer, 
perhaps the nearest approach to black that is to be 
found in vegetation, much darker than in the purple- 
leaved beech, thus making it conspicuous amid any and 
all surroundings ; but the color largely ‘‘ burns off’’ by 
fall, when it would be easily mistaken for our own spe- 
cies. For strong yet not inartistic punctuation of a 
landscape nothing is finer, as the contrast is as pleasing 
as it is curious. 
A considerable portion of the Park’s white adornings 
in June comes from that important genus in the honey- 
suckle family known as viburnum, containing several 
species with a showy profusion of bloom, largely native, 
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