PARK AND CEMETERY. 
21 5 
hope it will be financially successful. The admis- 
sion charge on the first day was ‘‘too exclusive.” 
As three or four members of the “Four Hundred” 
remarked to me: ‘‘Two dollars is quite a serious 
sum of money!” It is hoped the cheaper tickets for 
the second and third days would fill the exhibition 
to overflowing. J. MncP. 
A GROUP OF ARALIA SPINOSA IN FAIRMOUNT 
PARK, PHILADELPHIA. 
Although the Aralia is frequently found in gar- 
dens about Philadelphia, I do not remember ever 
seeing such a pretty group of them as exists in its 
Fairmount Park. So beautiful did they appear when 
full of flowers, one day in early September, that I 
GROUP OF ARALIA SPINOSA, FAIRMOUNT PARK, 
PHILADELPHIA. 
persuaded a good friend of mine to take a photo- 
graph for me for use in PARK AND CEMETERY, 
which it gives me much pleasure to present here- 
with. 
There are several species of Aralias, but this one, 
our native species, is the best of the many I have 
seen. There is a Japanese species, Aralia Japonica, 
which is not distinguishable from ours, so far as I 
have observed. It may be mentioned here, though 
probably already known to many of your readers, 
that there is a wonderful resemblance in the flora of 
the two countries, ' our own and Japan, suggesting 
a much closer connection between the two at some 
time than now exists. The Aralia mentioned, many 
magnolias, and various shrubs of Japan, resemble 
closely wild ones of our own, and this similarity is 
confined to the flora of these two countries. 
The beauty of the Aralia and its value for park 
purposes, consist in its tropical looking leaves, its 
immense flower heads and its fruit. 
The pinnate leaves are often two feet in length, 
and as they are mostly towards the top of the bush, 
it gives an arbor-like appearance which is most de- 
sirable. The flowers are greenish white, in numer- 
ous umbels, the whole producing an immense pan- 
icle. I have seen one panicle of a size to fill a half 
bushel measure. The illustration shows the panicles, 
but as the trees are of some age they are not as 
large as they are on younger ones. This tree grows 
from Pennsylvania southward in a wild state, mak- 
ing a small tree of about twelve feet or so in height, 
and often it will make but the one straight shoot, 
without any branches whatever, so that when in 
leaf it much resembles in appearance a large palm. 
I should mention that with the fading of the flow- 
ers comes little berries, which soon, stems and all, 
take on a cherry color, passing from this to black, 
and this great mass of fruit is as pretty as the 
flowers. 
When desired in clump shape, the top should 
be cut off near the ground, when several shoots will 
start up from underground. Sometimes two or 
three will come from each one as has occurred in 
the case cf this park group. 
These trees, suggestive as they are of shade and 
comfort, of a hot day, are not just the place for one 
to sit under. 
The stems are exceedingly prickly, which has 
doubtless suggested its common names Hercules 
Club and Devil’s Walking Stick. 
Looking through the group of Aralias will be 
seen a portion of the flower beds in the distance 
and to the right of it the lower part of a beautiful 
specimen of the Weeping Beech, another most use- 
ful tree for park purposes. When young it is 
scantily provided with branches, but as it is gets 
age it fills out splendidly in the way shown in the 
picture, especially if the leaders are cut out from it 
from time to time. 
Joseph Meehan. 
Botanists have found no fewer than 120 different 
kinds of flowers on Spitzbergen, most of them being un- 
known on the European continent. 
A writer in the Detroit Free Press says: The Jap- 
anese have a flower language. They have clearly de- 
termined the sentiments that correspond to such and 
such flowers, and especially those expressed in the 
grouping of flowers. They do not arrange them as we 
do. They make use of a vase or a hollow bamboo stalk 
ornamented with a motto of their own composition, and 
capable of containing stems of different lengths. Their 
arrangement is then intrusted to special artists, who en- 
deavor to give emphasis to the different heights, for in 
Japan this arrangement of flowers is treated as a real 
art, learned by a course of full and minute instruction, 
without which no education, masculine or feminine, is 
considered complete. The shortest stem represents the 
earth, the longest and highest represent heaven, and 
those intermediate represent humanity. 
