Opening Leaves 



VINES— C«>K«»j<^rf 

 Trumpet-flower (Tecoma) Wistaria (W.) 



Common (radicans) ^Chinese (sinensis) 



♦Large - flowered (grandi- (fruticosa) 



flora) 



A botanical list of all the trees, shrubs, and vines in 

 Central Park will be found at the end of the book, 

 page 425. 



From mountain-top to sea-shore the profusion of trees, 

 shrubs, and vines — summarized as landscape vegetation 

 — less difficult of identification than the minuter, 

 more hidden forms of growth, affords more constant 

 opportunities for entertaining research than any other 

 department of natural history. The areas favorable for 

 the other sciences are more or less local and restricted; 

 but these three growths are everywhere, the universal 

 garb and ornament of nature : they appeal to the most 

 casual observer, are a constant incentive to observation, 

 and their study yields its reward in the appreciation of a 

 thousand details of scenery that escape the careless eye. 



The significance of Central Park, as the background 

 of our proposed narrative-picture, is not in the wide 

 repute of these spacious grounds, but in the fact that in 

 this area, accessible, within an hour's ride, to about one- 

 twentieth of the population of the whole United States, 

 is a remarkable epitome of these three tjrpes of vegeta- 

 tion, showing the best representatives of hardy native and 

 foreign trees, shrubs, and vines. Here we have a sort of 

 arboretum, and the best sort, not with genera and species 

 13 



