HE CinUOUS TREES. 339 



impossible for any engraving to dp justice to the eccentric luxu- 

 riance of this tree. It is the very embodiment of all the odd freaks 

 •of growth that make trees picturesque, and the vigorous healthful- 

 ness of foliage that makes them beautiful. This tree is but twenty- 

 five years old, forty-five feet high, and fifty feet across the greatest 

 spread of its branches. There is a weeping beech growing in the 

 .grounds of John A. Kendrick in Newton, Mass., which has a cer- 

 tain symmetry of proportion, notwithstanding all its erratic ten- 

 dencies." It was planted in 1834, and is now fifty feet high. From 

 the ground to the top the trunk is straight, and the branches, which 

 ■directly incline downwards, are thrown off with perfect symmetry. 

 Branches, starting out twenty-six feet high, droop and trail upon 

 the ground.* This, however, is not the usual habit of the tree, 

 ■which commonly begins its growth in a great variety of tortuous 

 ■directions ; so that cultivators who have never seen well-grown 

 specimens are apt to ask what there can be about that ungainly 

 straggler to recommend it for an ornamental tree. We have seen 

 its leading stem grow so as to tie itself up into a knot, and then 

 start upward as if it quite enjoyed sitting on itself 



The growth of the tree indicates great vitality, and it will 

 •doubtless become one of the largest, as well as the most curious, of 

 lawn trees. Its fine masses of pendant boughs, and glossy, wavy 

 leaves, do not fairly hide the occasional uncouthness of its branches 

 until the tree has been five or six years planted. Of course the 

 richer and deeper the soil, the more speedily its best characteristics 

 will be developed. 



The Purple-leaved Beech. F. purpurea. — This singularly 

 tinted tree is a sport from the common white beech, found in a Ger- 

 man forest, and is one of the finest of tree-novelties. In the spring 

 its opening leaves' and twigs have a bright purple color, approaching 

 to crimson. As the growth continues, the color changes to a dull 

 purplish-green less pleasing, but still of a character to attract atten- 

 tion throughout the seasori. The form is perhaps a little more sym- 

 metrically ovate than the common beech, and the tree does not attain 



* Gardeners' Monthly, June, 1867. 



