ing the account of the trees of Essex County and the 

 Flora of Essex County printed by the Essex Insti- 

 tute some ten years since ; and, in addition, summer 

 or winter, dried specimens of the leaves and flowers 

 of all of our trees, as well as the woods, may be seen 

 at the museum of the Peabody Academy by those who 

 are puzzled by book descriptions.* 



Many persons suppose that the trees form a class 

 of plants by themselves. Botanically speaking this 

 is not true. An excellent idea of their distribution 

 among the families of plants can be obtained by glanc- 

 ing at the descriptions of our native and introduced 

 trees in Gray's Field, Forest and Garden Botany, 

 where, of course, the families are arranged in their 

 botanical sequence. Trees are included in each of the 

 great divisions of the vegetable kingdom. For example, 

 the maple and oaks among the exogens ; the pines, 

 spruces and junipers among the gymnosperms; the 

 yuccas and palms among the endogens ; and a number 

 of arborescent ferns among the cryptogams. In our 

 flora, the two last named classes are not represented 

 among the hardy trees which, hereabouts, native and 

 cultivated, are either exogens or gymnosperms — by 

 far the larger number of them being either cone- 

 bearing gymnosperms, as pines and spruces, or catkin 

 bearing exogens, as the oaks, walnuts, hickories and 

 willows. There are comparatively few of our trees 

 which bear large and attractive flowers. 



Collecting the data for these sketches has shown 

 that Salem is a very good arboretum, although few 



* A list of the books upon this and kindred subjects, on the 

 shelves of the Public Library, was printed in the Public Library 

 Bulletin, No. 1. 



