Shrubs and Vines 
plants in wind-exposed localities, as they are too vigor- 
ous to be affected by any climatic inclemencies. ‘The 
European alder is a tree, whose dark trunk and foliage 
make it a pleasing accessory of a water-scene, showing 
to advantage in several places in the Park, and it is lux- 
uriantly covered with yellowish catkins in early spring. 
It is not too much to say of the Deufzia gracilis that 
it is the most chaste and elegant little shrub that we 
have; and it is an almost inevitable corollary of that 
proposition, that it comes from Japan. In texture of 
petal and leaf, in form and purity of its delicate white 
flower, and in that atmosphere that is not reducible to 
words, it is so singular that it might be called a thrush 
among the flowers. Some plants must have their loca- 
tion carefully considered ; they are more or less fastidi- 
ous ; they might mar, or be marred by, their surroundings ; 
but the little deutzia, like a kind word, fits in anywhere. 
Another species much cultivated, D. crenata, is not 
materially different, but lacks the purity of color and the 
dainty diminutiveness of the graci#s. A larger shrub 
is D. scabra, which is literally overwhelmed in bloom 
in June, and the leaf, which is very scabrous, is a most 
beautiful object under the microscope, the roughness 
consisting of silver stars, having six to ten rays, thickly 
covering the field. Other species, varieties, and hybrids 
bring the number up to eight or more now in this coun- 
try, but the type of the genus is most finely expressed in 
Deutzia gracilis. 
A group for the most part tropical or sub-tropical, 
but containing a few species hardy in the Northern 
States, is Styrax, whose type of flower and leaf much 
159 
