Trees, Shrubs and Vines 
in the scale. The leaf is of peculiar shape, with the 
middle lobe quite tapering, and the large numerous pods 
remain through the winter. Whether it be the beloved 
flower of olden Jewish times or not, it is pleasant to 
think so, and its probable origin in Syria—whence its 
botanical name syvzacus—makes it at least plausible. It 
is the last large and brilliant flower of the season, except 
the late sporadic blossoms of the Japanese quince, and 
fades with the incoming of October, a landscape shrub 
of great beauty, and doubly effective from its period of 
bloom. 
The palmate type of leaf is the rarest of all, so that 
when one sees the dwarf horse-chestnut for the first 
time, he confidently pronounces it a species of the 
A¢sculus group ; but on looking at the very slender spikes 
of flowers, a foot long, generally white, thickly covering 
the bush in July, the difference from the horse-chestnut 
creates a little doubt; yet the flower is essentially the 
same, only a variation in the mode of clustering, one of 
those incidental circumstances that produce variety with 
little or no organic difference. As a writer has well 
said, nature is very sparing in fundamental types, but 
lavish in variations. As it spreads quite rapidly and 
tends to form a large clump, it is hardly a feasible plant 
for small grounds, whereas under suitable conditions it 
is desirable. Two clumps of it are in the ‘‘ Ramble,”’ 
one near the north end of the ‘‘ Bow-Bridge,’’ the other 
farther to the east, near the cluster of magnolias. Indig- 
enous only in the Southern States, it proves quite hardy 
in the North, and is not fastidious as to the kind of soil. 
A kindred species, the red buckeye, also of the Southern 
I50 
