THE PARC MONCEAU. 



55 



who drive tlirougli — but imperfect!}^, as tlie more interesting 

 objects are along the shady side and boundary walks. On 

 each side of the central drives glimpses are caught of very 

 diversified and graceful foliage and flowers^ but conspicuous 

 on the margin is a great mass of Caladium^ with leaves three 

 feet long and two and a half feet wide, springing from a 

 groundwork of blue Lobelia. 



You can have no real beauty in an ornamental garden 

 without the aid of full grown trees^ their majesty producing 

 an effect which cannot be dispensed with. Here they 

 approach the drive in groups, sometimes overshading plan- 

 tations of dense shrubs, at others springing clean from 

 the grass. In some places they are so crowded as to make 

 one wish for a little breath, in others they disappear, and 

 spreads of grass and dwarfer plants permit the eye to range. 

 On one side of the route may be noticed a hardy bamboo 

 with black polished stems, and rods ten, twelve, and fourteen 

 feet high ; on the other, one with yellow stems of about the 

 same height. An old specimen of the Abyssinian Musa is 

 vigorously pushing up a massive flower shoot scarcely yet 

 seen through the leaves, and in consequence they are by no 

 means so ornamental as those of younger plants which 

 devote all their energy to foliage. Tree ferns, and the 

 curious and graceful Beaucarnea with the great swollen 

 base, are seen here and there, the Beaucarnea apparently 

 not a first-rate subject for placing in the open air. Next 

 to the great Musa Ensete, the best Banana is the well-known 

 edible Musa Cavendishii : it is in perfect health, emerging 

 from a mass of Tradescantia zebrina ; the leaves twenty-four to 

 thirty inches long, and not often lacerated. A great mass of 

 the variegated Acer — several hundred trees — is margined 

 with rose-coloured geraniums, and all the space between filled 

 with Dahlias, Salvias, and the like : a good plan, inasmuch 

 as it prevents a naked base. Groups of palms, single 

 specimens of birch (as graceful as any exotic), and fine 

 out-arching specimens of the hardy Polygonum Sieboldi 

 form the most notable features of the central drive. Palms 

 from regions comparatively temperate, like the dwarf fan 

 palm of the south of Europe, the Palmetto of the Southern 



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