PARK AND CEMETERY. 
209 
The “tree” yucca in the picture is gloriosa. 
There are other tree yuccas but this and its varie- 
ties are the only hardy ones for England and, I 
may add, for warmer parts of the northern states. 
It is hardy in Pennsylvania, though but few 
planters appear to know it. Were it not to flower 
it would get very tall in time, but after a few years 
growth it produces a flower spike from the apex of 
its growth and this arrests its growth in that direc- 
tion, as a side shoot, or two or more shoots, are 
made. These grow on for a few years, when they 
in turn flower and other side shoots appearing, a 
shrubby small tree is made in time. The panicles 
are sometimes six feet in height, and when the lily- 
like white flowers are expanded there is a beauti- 
ful sight. The flowers come in August, some- 
times later, in Pingland, at times so late that they 
fail to perfect themselves before winter comes. 
This yucca behaves strangely in our northern 
states. It rarely makes a trunk as it does in Eng- 
land, and as the illustration shows it. When three 
or four years old and just as it begins to make a 
trunk, it flowers. This starts out the side shoots, 
and these shoots in turn flower soon, so that no 
trunk is made. I suggest that in England it does 
not flower for many years — as its straight trunk 
proves— and thus it forms the trunk. May it not 
be that our great heat brings on fructification at a 
much earlier age? We get the flowers but not the 
trunk. 
The children and attendants are those of an 
American family who was in possession of the 
place last summer, and to one of whom. Miss Gert- 
rude Wheeler, I am indebted for the photograph. 
Joseph Meehan. 
THE NORFOLK ISLAND PlNE 
ARAUCARIA EXCELS A. 
ONIFERS number some rarely 
beautiful specimens. Arau- 
caria Excelsa is curious and 
handsome. An evergreen, it 
is catalogued as “Christmas 
Tree Palm’’ and “Star Palm.’’ It is not a palm at 
all, but is so called partly, because of the frequency 
with which it is grown in tubs for conservatories in 
winter, and in summer for out door decorative pur- 
poses, along with Cocos Weddeliana, Areca Lutes- 
cens, Kentia Balmoreana, Latania Borbonica and 
other palms and cycads. They ornament the green 
house during the winter months and for park or 
garden ornamentation are not excelled in summer. 
The Norfolk Island Pine derives its fanciful 
names of “Christmas” and “Star Palm” mainly 
from the disposition of the leaves. They grow in 
whorls, star-shaped in the divisions, broad at the 
base, tapering to a pointed terminus, and all spread- 
ing out in flat form. These whorls grow one above 
the other, the newly formed one, just starting 
growth, making a bract on the top of the shrub or 
tree. It is used as a Christmas tree, from its for- 
mation, so neat, so beautiful and seemingly formed 
for the express purpose of receiving tapers, tinsels 
and bon-bons. Too rare and costly to be cut, how- 
ever, for Christmas tree, the Araucaria is grown in 
tubs, year by year increasing in height. Like all 
evergreens it makes deliberate growth. One 
whorl a year is about the average. A tree that 
THE NORFOLK ISLAND PINE, 4ra i/caria E.xccba. 
In the conservatory from three to ten years growth. 
numbers five or seven whorls is at its best appear- 
ing. The leaf construction is so beautiful, unique 
and striking that it is difficult to describe. As said 
before, each leaf is flat-spreading, like one point of 
a star, ready for upholding light and fanciful Christ- 
mas gifts. And the leisurely growth, year by year, 
keeps the Norfolk Island Pine within desired pro- 
portions. A two or three year old plant to start 
with, will be handsome and graceful in size for five 
or seven years to come, in apartments where such 
decorative plants occupy posts of honor. 
During the winter months it is easily cared for, 
not subject to diseases nor attacks of insects, nor is 
it sensitive to cold as applied to hard-wood, hot- 
house plants. Native of far southern lands, way 
down in and near Queens land, this is a tropical 
