DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
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tiful specimens may be seen in Cambridge, Mass., and very 
fine avenues of this tree are growing with great luxuriance 
in and about New Haven.* The charming villages of New- 
England, among which Northampton and Springfield are pre- 
eminent, borrow from the superb and wonderfully luxuriant 
elms, which decorate their fine streets and avenues, the 
greater portion of their peculiar loveliness. The elm should 
not be chosen where large groups and masses are required, 
as the similarity of its form in different individuals, might 
then create a monotony ; but, as we have before observed, it 
is peculiarly well calculated for small groups, or as a single 
object. The roughness of the bark contrasting with the 
lightness of its foliage, and the easy sweep of its branches, 
adds much also to its effect as a whole. 
We shall briefly describe the principal species of the elm. 
The American White elm. ( Ulmus Americana.) This is 
the best known, and most generally distributed, of our native 
species, growing in greater or less profusion, over the whole 
of the country included between Lower Canada and the 
Gulf of Mexico. It often reaches 80 feet in height in fine 
soils, with a diameter of 4 or 5 feet. The leaves are alter- 
nate, 3 or 4 inches long, unequal in size at the base, borne on 
petioles half an inch to an inch in length, oval, accuminate, 
and doubly denticulated. The seeds are contained in a flat, 
oval, winged seed-vessel, fringed with small hairs on the 
margin. The flowers, of a dull purple colour, are borne in 
small bunches on short footstalks, at the end of the branches, 
and appear very early in the spring. This tree prefers a 
deep rich soil, and grows with greater luxuriance if it be 
rather moist, often reaching, in such situations, an altitude 
* The great elm of Boston Common is 22 feet in circumference. 
