THE NEGLECTED AMERICAN PLANTS. 341 



" civilizee" is not more different frond the aboriginal man of the 

 ■ forest, than tbe cifltivated arid perfect garden-tree or shrub, (grant- 

 ing always that it takes to civihzalion — which some trees, like In- 

 diains, do not), l!han a tree of the pleasure-grounds differs from a 

 tree of the woods. ,. ^ , 



Perhaps the finest revelation of this sort in England, is the 

 clumps and masses of our mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia, and 

 our azaleas and rhododendrons, which emtellish the English plea- 

 sure-grounds. In some of the gi-eat country-seats, whole acres of 

 lawn, kept like velvet, are rdade tlfe ground-work upon which these 

 niasses of the richest foliaged and the gayest flowering shrubs are 

 eiribroidered. Each mass is planted in a round or oval bed of deep, 

 rich, sandy mould, iri which it attains a luxuriance ^.nd perfection 

 of form and foliage, .almost as new to an American as to a Sand- 

 wich Islander. The Germans make avenues of bur tulip-trees, and 

 'in the South of France, one finds more planted magnolias in the 

 gardens, than there a,re, out of the woods, in aU the United States. 

 It" is thus, by seeing them away from home, where their merits are 

 better appreciated, arid more highly developed, that one learns foi' 

 the first time what our -gardens have lost, by our laying none of 

 these " American plants " in them. 



The subject is one which should be pursued to much greater 

 length than we are able to follow it in the present article. Our 

 woods and swamps are full of the. most exquisite plants, some of 

 which' would greatly embellish even the smallest garden. But it is 

 raflier to one single feature in the pleasure-grounds, that we would 

 at; this moment direct th,e attention, and that is, the introduction of 

 two broad-leaved evergreen shrubs, that are abundant in every part 

 of the middle States, and that are, nevertheless, seldom to be seen 

 in any of our gardens or nurseries, from one end of the countiy to 

 the other. The defect is the more to be deplored, because oiu- oraa- 

 mental plantations, so far as they are evergreen, consist almost en- 

 tirely of pines and firs — all narrow-leavfed evergreens — far inferior 

 in richness'of f6lia,ge, to those we have mentioned. 



The Native Holty grows from Long Island to Florida, and is 

 quite abundant in the! woods of New Jersey, Maryland, and Vir- 

 ginia. It forms a shrub or small tree, varying from four to foi-ty 



