DECIDUOUS TREES. 
339 
dence. For wide avenues its more formal character and narrower 
head make it quite inferior to our weep- 
ing elm, but it has the advantage of that 
sylvan queen of being less liable to 
injury by worms. 
The rate of growth of the European 
horse-chestnut is about the same as that 
of the sugar maple, and half that of the 
weeping or white elm. Our native sorts, 
the buckeyes, are of slower growth and 
smaller size. In England there are trees 
from eighty to one hundred feet high, 
and others of equal diameter of head, 
but in general it is somewhat inferior 
in size at maturity to the great oaks 
and chestnuts ; sixty feet in height, and 
fifty feet diameter, being about its average development at ma- 
turity. The vignette, Fig. io6, represents the common form of a 
full-grown tree, Fig. 107 its leaves, and Fig. 108 the form of a 
thrifty tree of twelve years’ growth. 
The Double White-flowering Horse-chestnut, h. 
flore plena^ is a superb variety, with double flowers, in larger spikes 
than those of the common sort, and set with equal or greater 
abundance on the tree. It is in full bloom in June, two weeks 
later than the common sort. The form of the tree is higher in 
proportion to its diameter than the latter, the height being nearly 
double the breadth, and more square in outline. Ellwanger and 
Barry, at Rochester, have a noble young specimen about forty 
feet high, which, in the blossoming season, is like a verdant tower 
spangled all over with hyacinthine bouquets. It is in all respects 
an exquisite lawn tree, and one of the thriftiest of the species. 
The Red-flowering Horse-chestnut. jE. h. ruhicunda.— 
This tree is of less vigorous growth than the preceding, and of 
more globular form. It blooms at the same time, and the high 
color of its flowers makes it one of the most showy of trees in 
the blossoming season. 
Fig. 108. 
