i 5 6 



FLORA AND SYLVA, 



in estimation by his fellow artists is 

 proved by the fact that some of the fore- 

 most of them willingly painted the fig- 

 ures for his pictures, although the pub- 

 lic seem to have been slow in giving 

 him the position which he holds among 

 the Dutch masters at the present day. 

 His most frequent subjects are villages 

 surrounded by trees,with winding path- 

 ways and water-mills. The composi- 

 tion of his pictures is singularly happy, 

 and they are characterised by a warm 

 golden tint. 



The Patagonian Beech {Fagus antarctical). 

 — Sir T. H. Holdich, in a paper read before the 

 Royal Geographical Society, refers to the fine 

 effect of this tree. Ournorthern Beeches do not 

 give bright colour even in autumn but several 

 kinds from the far south are more showy at 

 various stages of growth, and plainly the au- 

 tumn beauty of this kind is great : "The most 

 conspicuous form of vegetation which clothed 

 the mountain-sides and filled the gullies of the 

 lower slopes was the Patagonian Beech, and, 

 excepting perhaps the North American Maple, 

 there is no vegetation which adoptssuch splen- 

 did hues in autumn. We wandered through 

 woods which were a blazing harmony (if that 

 be possible) of scarlet, purple, and orange. The 

 tints oftheautumn-paintedwoods spread them- 

 selves in brilliant interlacing threads from the 

 banks of the stream at our feet to the foot of 

 the snow-line of the rugged sierras above our 

 heads. It was as if the mountains were hung 

 with vivid sheets of oriental carpeting. Scarlet 

 and gold faded to purple in the distance, and 

 could be traced in bluer, fainter, lines to the 

 foot of the grey granite cliffs, above which 

 hung the white masses of snow-cap. Over all 

 was there usually a dull grey sky and the white 

 streaks of mountain mist, but variation was 

 the keynote of Patagonian weather. Drench- 

 ing rain, blinding fog, or thick grey snow- 

 storm might alternate with clear deep-blue sky 

 patches and fleecy clouds, with shafts of sun- 

 light athwart the hills, making a golden glory 

 of the woods and hanging deceptive rainbows 

 across the valleys." 



I THE LONDON PARKS : THEIR 

 DESIGN AND PLANTING. 



There is no city with so much varied 

 and beautiful land, free for public en- 

 joyment, and kept without stint of men 

 or material, as London. The climate is 

 not against, but rather in favour of, all 

 hardy trees and shrubs, and the always 

 welcome turf. The one drawback of 

 smoke does not affect them so much, 

 and that will surely be got over before 

 many years are past, being a self-inflicted 

 nuisance. We know enough to get rid 

 of the smoke of London in three years 

 if the "powers that be" would only take 

 it in hand . Having these advantages we 

 ought not to lose the good of these 

 parks through inartistic design or by 

 stereotyped repetitions of each other's 

 ways in spite of variations of soil. No- 

 thing could be worse than that these 

 parks should be devoted to a single plan 

 of " floral decoration " destructive of 

 all initiative on the part of the able men 

 in charge. They should not be planted 

 with only common nursery trees which 

 one may see by every suburban road. 

 Not that the parks should be botanic 

 gardens, because we have already the 

 finest existing botanic garden at Kew, 

 but, having such an ample area of space, 

 they might show groups and masses of 

 the finer trees and shrubs for which 

 space could not be spared at Kew. They 

 should also be planned in some relation 

 to our climate, and not be based entire- 

 ly on exotic things. They are English 

 parks, and to make them anything like 

 the Champs Elysees, or the tea-garden 

 style better known in England, would 

 be a serious mistake. The best of these 



