Pomona College Journal of Economic Botany 



453 



Take the Himalayan cedar {Cedrus deodara), which is a handsome and 

 graceful tree in its place, when planted as an avenue tree. In the first place, 

 it must be allowed to retain all of its lower branches if it is to retain its 

 graceful charm, thus necessitating its being planted along country boulevards 

 that do not have sidewalks paralleling them. In the second place, it encloses 

 the street between two shining green walls that furnish no shade the while 

 they reflect and counter-reflect the radiated heat of the sun. It is of an 

 inimitable beauty as a specimen or lawn tree where it can expand as nature 

 intended, but planted along an avenue, it poorly serves a purpose for which 

 it was not intended. This cedar serves as an example of the conifer type 



Plate 197. Golden bamboo (Bambusa aurea) is very attractive on a short or curving 

 drive, but excludes all circulation of air when planted so closely. Giant 

 bamboo, planted in clumps, would well adorn an occasional avenue. 



which is ([uite commonly, though, I think, unwisely, used in our roadside 

 plantings. 



While the palm will grow up and away from the sidewalk and street as 

 the conifer will not, nevertheless it fails in the requirements for a tree suitable 

 to plant along drives of any considerable length. Where formality is desired, 

 or if planted along short or curved stretches of driveway, the palm is very 

 beautiful. But it does not accord with my ideas of an ideal boulevard tree, 

 because it lacks an umbrageous head and possesses an excessive expanse of 

 bare trunk that becomes monotonous to the eye. One of the accompanying 



