no 



Garden and Forest. 



[Number 211. 



dangerous attack with which the park has been threatened. 

 The most important plantation in it is the tree-border, which, 

 so far as possible, shuts the city out of sight. This project 

 would practically sacrifice the entire border of one side of 

 the park, or it would narrow into pettiness the meadows 

 whose breadth gives the park its essential charm. It would 

 warn out as with a line of fire all visitors from the west 

 side, unless they reached the park through tunnels under 

 the road or by bridges thrown across it. It would make 

 an offensive exhibition of the power of money to confiscate 

 for the pleasure of a few rich men the ground which offers 

 to the poor of the city their only opportunity to enjoy the 

 sight of verdant fields. No one would think of selecting 

 such a site for a speed-road unless he could steal the land. 

 And when the enormous cost of construction through these 

 rugged rocks and ridges is added to the greater loss by de- 

 struction which the people of the city would suffer, this 

 would prove the most expensive road in the world. And, 

 after all, it would make only a second-class track, which 

 would be abandoned as a public nuisance within five years 

 after it had been finished. 



What is the value of a tree.? is a question which has 

 lately been settled in the London courts, as reported in a 

 recent issue of the Gardeners' Chronicle. It appears that a 

 resident in the suburbs of London had in his garden two 

 Poplar-trees, which protected him from the smoke and 

 noise of trains passing over the rails of the London and 

 North-western Railway Company, whose location his land 

 joined. The trees, for some reason or other, interfered with 

 the traffic of the railroad ; the owner was willing to shorten 

 the branches, but objected to cutting down the trees. And 

 then, negotiations for their removal having failed, the com- 

 pany sent its own men and cut them down. They offered 

 to pay two hundred and fifty dollars for this high-handed 

 act, and later increased the amount to five hundred dollars. 

 The court placed the value of the trees at fifteen hundred 

 dollars, and awarded additional damages of one thousand 

 dollars for the injury caused by their removal. An occa- 

 sional decision of this character in this country would have 

 a very salutary influence upon telephone and telegraph 

 companies, who have come to look upon our highway 

 trees as of no value whatever when they interfere in 

 any way, directly or indirectly, with their business. 



Bright Winter Leaves. 



■p VEN in our colder northern states nature has some bright 

 -•— ' color for winter's relief. Against the background of her 

 sombre browns, purplish grays and evergreens gleam out, 

 now and then, scarlet winter fruits and berries, and the shinin^ 

 crimson stems of vigorous young tree-shoots. Traveling- 

 southward one finds, interspersed among the open woods, 

 clumps of Holly (Ilex opaca) all aglow with clusters of bright 

 berries thickly set among its thorny shield-like leaves, and in 

 the tops of Oak and Gum trees are brilliant green circles of 

 iVIistletoe, gemmed with pearl-like berries. 



These glints of color, on a level range of vision, the eye 

 quickly takes in, but close down to the forest-leaves at one's 

 feet, the persistent foliage of a number of forest-plants form 

 patches of glowing color quite as cheering to look upon. 



Tiarella cordifoUa, our dainty little Foam Flower, retains its 

 large. Maple-shaped leaves all winter here in the middle Alle- 

 ghanies. These leaves all spring in a great tuft from the root, 

 and, ripening into glowing patches of yellow and scariet, gleam 

 out brightly from rocky eastern hill-sides. I have seen these 

 leaves, still soft and pliant and vivid in color, late in sprint, 

 with the delicate sprays of the plant's white flowers above 

 them, before the young season's leaves were sent upward. 



Often in the open woods in winter you come upon oreat 

 beds of Galax aphyllya leaves. They are of all colors, from 

 the soft green of their summer hue, shading up through tints 

 of golden green and scarlet and crimson to darkest brown- 

 maroon. These quaintly shaped round-cordate leaves, with 

 their crenate-ruffled edges, are borne upon slender wiry stems 

 SIX or seven inches high. Their texture is stiff and glossy, and 

 they shine as if varnished, and rustle softly as the wind 



sweeps over them. In the sunlight they gleam like a beau- 

 tiful mosaic. 



The leaves of Asarum V'irginicumareas handsome as those 

 of any Cyclamen, and, when bruised, exhale a strange, de- 

 hghtful odor. On exposed, bare hill-sides the cold gives to 

 the thick, leathery leaf a metallic purple lustre, but usually it 

 is bright green motded with white, like the Cyclamen-leaf, 

 which it also resembles in shape and size. A curious litde 

 family of pitcher-shaped blossoms may be found clustering 

 close to the earth beneath these leaves in March and Feb- 

 ruary. 



A darker leaf, but one quite as beautiful and persistent 

 throughout the winter, is that of the Dye Bush. Its com- 

 mon name was given with reference to the yellow dye 

 extracted from it I am told. B Jt its winter-leaves are a soft, 

 rich purple color, as smooth and pliable as velvet. I have seen 

 the mountaineers bind them upon wounds for healing as they 

 would a salve. The shrub grows only three or four feet tall, 

 and its mantle of purple leaves covers it thickly. 



Western North Carolina. L. Greenlee. 



Winter Rambles in the Pine-barrens.— III. 



A LLIED to the Alder and Paper Birch, and the only represen- 

 ■'^^ tative of the Sweet-gale family here, is a petty shrub, Myrica 

 asplenifolia, or Sweet Fern, found sometimes in the sterile 

 soil. It corresponds in size to the Low Birch (Betula pumila) 

 likewise found in neighboring bogs. It is also much like it iii 

 color, the bark of the stems being brown, and that of the 

 branches reddish brown. It is a stout little shrub, two or three 

 feet high, with long branches ascending or horizontal, making 

 it tree-like in shape. Its chief attraction now is the prominent, 

 club-shaped tufts of male catkins at the ends of the lonc^ 

 branches. They are in clusters of five or six, closely appressed 

 to the branches, often slightly twisted so as to form an imper- 

 fect spiral around the branch, and point away from the plant 

 like an outstretched finger. The pointed scales are softly hairy, 

 and, like the ends of the branches, are sprinkled with resinous 

 dots, which shine like flakes of pyrite under a lens, the whole 

 arrangement offering a singular blending of color coming 

 from the brown scales, gray hairs and golden dots. The 

 aments and young branches exhale the same resinous odor 

 that the leaves do in summer, though not as strong, from 

 which agreeable property, and the fern-like appearance of its 

 pinnatifid leaves, it obtains its popular name. Sweet Fern. It 

 is regarded as one of the most characteristic species of the 

 Pine-barren flora, but I do not find it as abundant among the 

 Pines here as it is farther north. In fact, it is more common 

 in the sandy region bordering the Pine-belt than in the Pine- 

 belt proper. 



There is an interesting moss-like plant on the sand-hills be- 

 longing to the Club Moss family, the little Selaginella (S. 

 rupestris). It grows in close tufts, rooting in the sand as 

 effectually as it does to the rocks, which are its more common 

 home, and have given it its name. The short, roundish stems, 

 densely clothed with small grayish green leaves, are rigid, and 

 often nearly buried in sand, for the plant delights in exposed 

 positions, not on shifting dunes, but on hills partly overo-rown 

 with trees, when it helps to keep the sands in place. It is very 

 different in color and appearance from the flat-stemmed 

 Selaginellas, common in cultivation for the decoration of 

 flower-baskets and the edges of flower-pots, one of which, S. 

 apus, is found sparingly in the wet sands of this locality. 



Two of the true Club Mosses, with evergreen foliage, grow 

 in the Barrens, but are not common. One is the Ground Pine 

 (Lycopodium obscurum, var. dendroideum), seen in rather 

 moist, shaded ground, with upright shoots half a foot high and 

 closely resembling a miniature tree rising from a creeping 

 subterranean stem. They are always bright and glossy, with 

 thick, lance-linear, incurved leaves closely attached in several 

 ranks to the stems and spreading branches. The erect, club- 

 shaped spikes of fruit, dry and faded, may be seen adhering 

 to the summit of the stems. The other is L. clavatum, also 

 known as Ground Pine, but with less of the appearance' of a 

 tree, smaller and less striking. The branches are flat and 

 forking and spread like a fan, and are provided with minute 

 awl-shaped leaves. The stems creep extensively, sometimes 

 just beneath the surface of the ground, but more often under 

 a covering of leaves or humus. From these several upright 

 stems, three or four inches high, spring up. The fan-shaped 

 branches may start from these stems in such a way as to 

 assume a spiral or corkscrew appearance as they spread. It 

 is a paler plant than the preceding, lacking its glossiness, but 

 excels it in prettiness when in fruit, with two to four cylin- 

 drical spikes borne in an upright cluster at the top of a slender 





