DECIDUOUS ORNAMENTAL TREES. 
243 
In the upper part of Massachusetts, we have observed 
them in their native soils growing 70 or 80 feet high, and 
assuming a highly pleasing appearance. Their foliage is 
bluish-green, and more delicate ; yet altogether the Ame- 
rican Larch appears to be more stiff and formal (except 
far north) than the foreign tree. 
The Virgilia Tree. Virgilia .* 
Nat. Ord. Leguminaceae. Lin. Sysi. Decandria, Monogynia. 
This fine American tree, still very rare in our orna- 
mental plantations, is a native of West Tennessee, and the 
banks of the Kentucky river, and in its wild localities 
seems confined to rather narrow limits. It was named, 
when first discovered, after the poet Yirgil, whose 
agreeable Georgies have endeared him to all lovers of 
nature and a country life. 
The Virgilia is certainly one of the most beautiful of 
all that class of trees bearing papilionaceous, or pea-shaped 
flowers, and pinnate leaves, of which the common locust 
may serve as a familiar example. It grows to a fine, 
rather broad head, about 30 or 40 feet high, with dense 
and luxuriant foliage — much more massy and finely tufted 
than that of most other pinnated-leaved trees. Each leaf 
is composed of seven or eight leaflets, three or four inches 
long, and half that breadth, the whole leaf being more than 
a foot in length. These expand rather late in the spring, 
and are, about the middle of May, followed by numerous 
terminal racemes, or clusters, of the most delicate and 
charming pea-shaped blossoms, of a pure white. These 
* Cladeastris tinctoria. Torrey and Gray. 
