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PARK AND CEMETERY 
Native Ornamental Planting^ in Texas. 
There are a number of beautifully illustrated and charm- 
ingly written catalogs sent out from the neighborhood of 
Philadelphia that apart from their artistic inspiration, are 
of no more value to central Texas than in Cuba. They speak 
of hardy shrubs that will grow anywhere for anybody. 
My business as keeper of grounds of the University of 
where there is water ; and the pecan and sycamore on water 
courses. 
The big problem is what to plant on the black soil of the 
vast prairies, the fine farming soil of the state. Its excess 
of lime in the subsoil and our dry hot summers do not agree 
with a large forest timber growth. 
BLUEBONNETS (THE TEXAS STATE FLOWER) 
ON UNIVERSITY OP TEXAS CAMPUS. 
Texas for many years has taught me that we must utilize 
our native plants and their nearly related types in a land- 
scaping of our own, and develop that which will survive. 
The maples, lindens, laurels, and lots of other good things 
will not do. We know it, yet we keep on hoping that we may 
do what climate forbids, but in a smaller degree. The whole 
privet group do well; the hackberry is our principal shade 
tree on limestone soil ; the cottonwood and Ulmus Americana 
YOUNG SYCAMORES ON UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS CAMPUS. 
Another picture shows a block of two acres of Mexican 
tuberoses grown near here ; they are the only variety that 
succeeds here. The pearl and other varieties of the Eastern 
states are a failure here. 
Our best native early flower is the blue bonnet (Lupinus 
subcarnosus) . It grows best on thin chalk land and in fa- 
vorable seasons grows knee high and gives solid acres of 
bloom. H. B. Reck, Austin, Tex. 
A FIELD OF RAMSEY'S TUBEROSES, IN TEXAS. 
We have a lot of good things that are indigenous, as our 
Cooperias, that have bloomed seven times this year, the first 
being April 15, the last Oct. 24th, wild and uncared for on 
the prairie hills. The tuberoses bloom longer and more 
freely than in the East, yet a pine, hemlock or fir positively 
declines to honor us by living to be a tree, while the live oak 
lives for hundreds of years. 
One of the views taken on the campus in the early spring- 
time shows the rain lillies (Cooperia pedunculata), which 
have made seven distinct crops of bloom this year; they are 
native, self-seeded and receive no care or attention. They 
come up through the Bermuda grass sod, and burst into 
bloom two days after a heavy rain. They are fragrant and 
perfume the air for a long distance. 
COOPERIAS IN THE SPRING IN TEXAS. 
