PARK AND CEMETERY. 
191 
passed over the old sea wall, was carried 
over buildings by the fierce hurricane, 
drenched the foliage of those not protected 
by buildings and killed them. 
The specimen Pittosporums shown here 
include views of the largest, oldest and 
most shapely P. Tobira or Japanese Pit- 
tosporum and the best P. Tobira, var. 
variegatum, not only in the city, but that 
the writer has yet seen. 
The variegated one stands near the wall 
on the west side of the charming central 
court or patio of a large hotel, is believed 
to have been planted in 1887 or 1888, and 
is twelve or fifteen feet in height, with a 
spread north and south of about the same 
distance. Its rather light green leaves are 
distinctly outlined by a creamy border, the 
coloring being both agreeable and effective. 
The larger tree of the type was planted at 
the close of the Civil War, is about thirty 
feet high (more rather than less) and 
would measure still more than that 
THE CHARLOTTE ST. TREE. 
through its umbrella-shaped head had it 
not been cruelly cut out on one side to 
satisfy the prejudices of a neighbor. The 
trunk is forty-seven inches in circumfer- 
ence six inches about the ground, and 
around the curious knot or excrescence it 
measures sixty-one and a half inches. The 
largest of the three main branches is thirty 
inches around. 
The natural habit of growth of this va- 
riety, as shown by a number of large 
specimens examined, is to send out a clus- 
ter of trunks at the ground, and this one 
exception, seen in the photograph, is 
single-trunked for a short distance because 
in its early youth all others were cut 
away to produce this chosen form. 
One side of the trunk is badly decayed, 
due, from appearances, to the wounds of 
the wholesale pruning. 
This picturesquely beautiful tree is be- 
lieved to be the oldest as well as the only 
single-trunk Pittosporum tree in the coun- 
try. It stands in an old garden, beside 
an old house of Spanish type, overshad- 
owing an ancient wall of old-world aspect, 
and the combined oldness resolves itself 
into a quant picture that constitutes the 
chief attraction of the ancient thorough- 
fare called Charlotte street. 
When in flower this tree is a snowdrift 
of bloom — the only kind ever seen in St. 
Augustine — and its perfume pervades the 
entire neighborhood, inviting a droning 
host of bees and a myriad of fluttering 
butterflies. They hover continuously, 
seeming to realize the evanescent charac- 
ter of the feast. It is, in fact, a fleeting 
show — come and gone in a week or ten 
days. Frances Copley Seavey. 
TRANSFORMING THE VILLAGE CEMETERY 
A Story of One Woman’s Achievement. 
Bordering the banks of the Kalamazoo 
River at a certain point in its course 
through southern Michigan lies a country 
village. In many respects this little burg 
differs not at all from hundreds of others 
of equal size in this commonwealth. 
' Time was when the village cemetery 
was an exact counterpart of the burial 
plots so often found in rural communities. 
Headstones were tottering or had fallen 
prone into the tall grass. Here was a 
terrace and there a hollow, with many an 
unsightly mound of earth left to be cov- 
ered over with weeds and brambles. Foun- 
dations were sunken and awry. The trees 
had been unacquainted with the pruner’s 
shears for years and in places their low 
sweeping branches had killed out the 
grass. In short, all conditions combined 
to present a generally unkempt appearance. 
To crown it all the sexton, whose duties 
took him to the cemetery semi-occasion- 
ally, had been allowed to use the most 
conspicuous corner for a rubbish dump- 
ing ground. Indeed, one could easily have 
mistaken the place for a portion of the 
Deserted Village of Goldsmith’s tale. 
But, fortunately, there dwelt here a pub- 
lic spirited woman who not only had ideals 
but good, practical ideas. 
The neglected burial spot appealed to 
her as a field of endeavor and upon its 
transformation she bent her energies. She 
had won the interest and hearty co-opera- 
tion of her husband and a few loyal 
friends which made the task of interest- 
ing others in her plans more easy. 
An incentive to action was furnished in 
the knowledge that they would be but con- 
tinuing the work of a cemetery associa- 
tion which has been organized in 1839 
and reorganized and enlarged in 1868 by 
a number of the sturdy farmer pioneers 
of the vicinity, but which, upon their 
deaths, had gradually become non-existent 
so far as any practical work was con- 
cerned, whereupon the cemetery had 
fallen into the condition of disorder pre- 
viously mentioned. 
However, the memory of the good work 
of these early settlers proved an inspira- 
tion to those of the present day, and, filled 
with a desire to carry on this work until 
some definte results should be attained, 
our friends raised by subscription a con- 
siderable sum for the straightening and re- 
setting of tombstones on permanent foun- 
dations and the grading of lots. More 
than sixty headstones were leaning, fallen 
or broken when the work began. Indeed, 
one marble slab was found fully six inches 
underground, with a well-sodded turf cov- 
ering the soil above it. Its discovery was 
due entirely to one of the older residents 
of the village whose home when a child 
adjoined the cemetery and who insisted 
that a stone had stood upon that spot. 
The work was hard and discouraging 
at first, but from the beginning a distinct 
plan was kept in mind to carry out the 
most approved methods of modern ceme- 
teries whenever consent to do so was 
granted by lot owners. To a great extent 
grades and terraces were done away with, 
uneven surfaces were smothed, trees were 
