PARK AND CEMETERY, 
172 
SOME NATIVE PLANTS. 
With the wealth of native herbaceous plants, 
shrubs, and vines, we are certainly not compelled 
to resort to exotics for beautifying our parks; in 
fact, with the native trees, — and of course we would 
not dispense with these, — indigenous flowers seem 
more in harmony. 
Many of them, contrary to the prevalent notion, 
are easily transplanted, and speedily adapt them- 
selves to their new surroundings with a spirit in 
direct variance with their seeming delicacy and 
modesty. While as a rule it is advisable to follow 
nature’s course in selecting the location for each in- 
dividual, there are cases in which a change in soil 
proves even beneficial. Thus the beautiful cardi- 
nal and meadow rue, which never voluntarily stray 
far from the brookside, increase in size and luxuri- 
ance on being transplanted to rich dry soil, yet lose 
not a whit of their peculiar grace. 
One of the best autumn bloomers, and happily 
one most easily established, is the Closed Gentian, 
( Gentiana Andrew sii) the flowers of which do not 
open, but retain the semblance of buds until they 
wither. It is a comely plant throughout the entire 
season, with smooth, glossy, ovate leaves. But in 
late August, when the flower buds form and the 
foliage takes on the first purplish tinge, which, as 
the buds mature, seems a reflection of their own 
rich hues, — then the plant commands special atten- 
tion. Its color, always intense, varies somewhat 
even on the same plant as the season advances, and 
while Thoreau has been criticised for describing it 
as “a splendid blue,” there are certain stages in its 
development when only an artist’s eye would de- 
tect any inaccuracy in the description. Certainly 
few blossoms display in their short life so many 
distinct shades of color, — all clear and intense. 
This plant also furnishes an interesting study in 
insect life; for while its corollas do not open, the 
bumblebees have learned how to rifle them of their 
sweets. The writer has on more than one occasion 
watched with interest their repeated efforts to thrust 
their proboscis between the folds of the floral cur- 
tains, their evident satisfaction on forcing their head 
and nearly the whole body into the cup, and the re- 
sulting discomfiture when an exit is attempted, — 
for the valves of the corolla close at once over the 
downy visitor. But alarm vanishes with escape, 
and the bee at once seeks the heart of a sister flower, 
carrying with it pollen and thus aiding nature in her 
great plan of cross fertilization. 
The wild indigo is another comely plant easily 
transplanted. Though herbaceous, its tall stalks 
assume a shrubby aspect, it flowers freely and per- 
sistently through mid-summer, when there is a com- 
parative dearth of wild flowers, the latest blossoms 
kissing those of the earliest gentians in their fare- 
well, and their yellow pea-shaped blossoms con- 
trasting in a most pleasing manner with the blue- 
green, genista-like foliage and rounded seed-pods. 
This plant would speedily gain friends by its pecu- 
liarly attractive foliage, though destitute of flowers. 
Our native columbine is ornamental among 
shrubbery or in rocky places, and happily adapts 
itself to almost any situation, increasing rapidly 
from seed self-sown. Bessie L. Putnam. 
THE DUTIES OF A GARDENER. 
The following is from the introduction to Horace 
Walpole’s ( 1801 ) edition of "Whateley’s Observa- 
tions,” and may be profitably read by the members 
of Park and Cemetery boards always. 
“Gardening, in the perfection to which it has 
been brought in Britain, is entitled to a place of 
considerable rank among the liberal arts. It is as 
superior to landscape painting, as a reality to a 
representation: it is an exertion of fancy, a subject 
for taste; and being released now from the restraints 
of regularity, and enlarged beyond the purposes of 
domestic convenience, the most beautiful, the most 
simple, the most noble scenes of nature are all 
within its province; for it is no longer confined to 
the spots from which it borrows its name, but regu- 
lates also the disposition and embellishments of a 
park, a farm or a riding; and the business of a gar- 
dener is to select and to apply whatever is great, 
elegant, or characteristic in any of them', to discover 
and to show all the advantages of the place upon 
w'hich he is employed; to supply its defects, to cor- 
rect its faults, and to improve its beauties. 
For all of these operations the objects of nature 
are still his only materials. His first enquiry, 
therefore, must be into the means by which those 
effects are attained in nature, which he is to pro- 
duce; and into those properties in the objects of na- 
ture, which should determine him in the choice and 
arrangement of them. 
Nature always simple, employs but four mater- 
ials in the composition of her scenes, ground, wood 
(plants,) water and rocks. The cultivation of na- 
ture has introduced a fifth species, the buildings 
requisite for the accommodation of men. Each of 
these again admit of varieties in their figure, dimen- 
sions, color, and situation. Every landscape is com- 
posed of these parts only; every beauty in a land- 
scape depends on the application of their several 
varieties. ” 
Public opinion in Paris having compelled the park 
department to withdraw a concession for a bicycle track 
in the Bois de Boulogne made to the Prince de Sagan, 
as soon as the Prince began to cut down trees, the courts 
have refused the Prince damages for the loss of the 
concession. 
