PARK AND CEMETERY. 
ITHE SPRING GARDEN-XI 
A conspectus of Botanical groups ar- one of these had been planted by a rel- 
ranged on the theory that vegetation ative fifty years before, or in the 
has proceeded from the cool mountain 
tops and from both poles, or possibly 
from the center : 
N. to S. 
Aroidales. 
Cyperales. 
Graminales. 
Palmales. 
Liliales. 
Iridales. 
Musales. 
Orchidales. 
Fluviales. 
Ranunculales. 
Papaverales. 
Polygalales'. 
Dianthales. 
Camelliales. 
Malvales. 
Geraniales. 
Ilicales. 
Celastrales. 
Sapindales. 
Legumales. 
Rosales. 
Saxifrag-ales. 
Myrtales. 
Passiflorales. 
Cactales. 
Umbellales. 
Cinchonales. 
Asterales. 
Campanales. 
Ericales. 
Primulales. 
Diospyrales. 
Gentianales. 
Polemoniales. 
Bignoniales. 
Salviales. 
Chenopodiales. 
Aristolochiales. 
Plperales. 
Daphnales. 
Loranthales. 
Euphorbiales. 
Urticales. 
Quernales. 
Salicales. 
Coniferales. 
Intermediales. 
Fillcales. 
Muscales. 
S. to N. 
Muscales. 
Fillcales. 
Intermediales. 
Coniferales. 
Salicales. 
Quernales. 
T^rticales. 
Euphorbiales. 
Eoranthales. 
Daphnales. 
Piperales. 
Asarales. 
Aristolochiales. 
Chenopodiales. 
Salviales. 
Bignoniales. 
Polemoniales. 
Gentianales. 
Diospyrales. 
Primulales. 
Ericales. 
Campanales. 
Asterales. 
Cinchonales. 
Umbellales. 
Cactales. 
Passiflorales. 
Myrtales. 
Saxifragales. 
Rosales. 
Legumales. 
Sapindales. 
Celastrales. 
Ilicales. 
Geraniales. 
Malvales. 
Camelliales. 
Dianthales. 
Polygalales. 
Papaverales. 
Ranunculales. 
Fluviales. 
Orchidales. 
Musales. 
Iridales. 
Eiliales. 
Palmales. 
Graminales. 
Cyperales. 
Aroidales. 
Thus the little Wolffias and Lemnas 
early years of the nineteenth century, in 
large part (both as to park and garden) 
after the Jussieuean classes, and I have 
always felt that neither Kew, with all 
its riches of material, nor any other of 
the great classified plantings I have seen 
in various parts of the world were any- 
thing like as comprehensive. It was too 
near a growing town however, and the 
last I knew of it, the estate was cut up 
into little farms, market gardens, and 
building sites, and the often magnificent 
growths of the park and plantations 
were being hauled awa}' as timber by 
traction engines. 
In the seven years’ apprenticeship in 
this old garden I did about everything 
that a boy could do — from weeding the 
“long walk,” crocking and washing 
pots, making mushroom beds, writing 
tallies and arranging the bedding for 
the parterre — which fifty years ago was 
thought to require considerable ability, 
but I can say, after a long life spent 
in many parts of the world, that it 
does not require a tithe of the knowl- 
edge or the care that is needed to plant 
a perfect herbaceous border. 
A perfect herbaceous border has 
never been seen by one gardener in a 
hundred ; I mean a border with well 
graded plants full of flowers from end 
to end, in bloom from spring to fall. 
Such a border is well nigh impossible 
of attainment, and is only to be met 
with once or twice in a lifetime under 
are at one end of the system and the 
Riccias at the other. I have not included 
Fungales, or Algales, or Lichenales. 
Specialists may try to arrange them at 
the different ends of the series; it is a 
study for a systematic botanist or pal- 
aeontologist rather than for a gardener. 
Perhaps I ought to explain why I 
prefer this grouping to a heterogeneous 
one. In the first place it is more readily 
available to botanists who are scat- 
tered all over the world, and sometimes 
acquainted with the Hookerian system, 
which the conspectus follows from 
Ranunculales down. I have merely 
changed the position of the endogens, 
which never seemed to me to be prop- 
erly placed between conifers and ferns, 
while it does seem that a connection 
can readily be found between certain 
Fluviales and Ranunculales. More- 
over, the arrangement is conciliatory. 
As for my ability to treat the group- 
ing with facility, I may say that I was 
both born and brought up in gardens, 
which were pretty good ones, as British 
gardens were rated fifty years ago, and 
the hands of a specialist working under 
the most favorable conditions in the 
best of climates. 
It is of no use to mince the matter, 
or throw a glamour around the “grand- 
mother’s garden,” it is nearly always full 
of gaps, and for the most part of the 
season unsightly. 
Parsons in his landscape gardening 
has a good deal to say about his “grand- 
mother’s garden,” but when I saw the 
herbaceous borders in Central Park 
in very warm weather, there was 
scarcely a well bloomed plant in them, 
and lots of bare ground. 
He hints at an infinitely better ar- 
rangement on page 200 when he says ; 
“Herbaceous plants may be planted 
effectively on the lawn in connection or 
in front of the shrubberies. First trees, 
then shrubs, then herbaceous plants or 
wild flowers, and finally grass. This is 
the natural arrangement of such lawn 
plantations.” True, and such are the 
demands of the humbler and finer herb- 
plants for peculiar positions, soil, 
moisture, light, shade and individual at- 
tention, that they can rarely or never 
have such in the herbaceous bor- 
ders. To preserve many of the finer 
kinds from competition alone, they must 
be segregated in beds much as bedding 
plants are, but as they are rarely 
so continuous in bloom as selected bed- 
ders, they must be grouped according to 
their seasons of spring, early summer, 
mid-summer, late summer and autumn. 
It is to be remarked too that round 
beds are by all odds the best that can 
be employed, for they can be fitted to 
any groups, or any surfaces that can be 
mown over, they are easiest and short- 
est to mow around and work in every- 
way, and whatever “Juniors" may think, 
when they are filled with growing plants 
they by no manner of means appear like 
“round windows in a building,” for 
plants have and are intended to have 
ways and habits of their own which 
diversify and accentuate their outlines, 
no matter what the shape of the beds 
may be. James MacPherson. 
(Concluded) 
RUSSIAN POPLAR GOOD 
FOR STREETS OF CHICAGO 
Jens Jensen, general superintendent 
of the West Side park system of Chi- 
cago, is a popular man to interview on 
park matters, and always has something 
interesting and forcible to say. In a 
recent interview in a Chicago daily he 
talked as follows about street trees : 
“I am convinced that the Russian 
poplar is the only tree that will survi\-e 
Chicago conditions, The insects shun 
it like poison. The leaves have a pe- 
culiar bitter taste that even the oyster 
shell bark louse doesn’t like. If this 
bug had to live on Russian poplar, he 
would die. His gorge rises every tine 
he thinks of it. Our parks are para- 
dises of tree lice. The larvae liave been 
feeding on our trees, boring their way 
in and eating the heart out of the tree. 
Then a windstorm comes along and the 
tiee breaks. At the government ex- 
periment station in Minnesota they have 
been cultivating Russian poplars ex- 
tensively. The tree has many points of 
superiority. In the first place it keeps 
its shape. The branches do not strug- 
gle or sag. This poplar could be plant- 
ed even in the downtown streets. There 
is no reason why every residence street 
in the city shouldn’t be lined with Rus- 
sian poplars. If every citizen would 
plant one of these trees, you hardly 
would recognize the city next spring. 
People would come miles to see the 
sight, and Chicago again would assume 
the title ‘Urhs in Horto.’ ” 
