PARK AND CEMETERY 
41 
LABELS FOR PLANTS AND TREES. 
The best labels are those made of iron with the 
names cast in the surface. There are concerns which 
make such labels. These, however, are expensive, and 
cannot always be used. For home-made labels, I have 
never found anything better, for shrubs and low plants, 
than stakes which are neatly lettered with lamp black 
and oil. Stakes may be treated so that they will last a 
number of years. The zinc label, painted with lamp 
black and oil, makes a very excellent tree label, and will 
last several years. Some of the very fancy glass and 
porcelain labels are, of course, excellent when one can 
afford them. Z. H. Bailey, 
Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y. 
* * * 
The problem of labeling trees, after they have 
reached a considerable size, is simpler than that of 
labeling other plants. I have studied the subject very 
carefully in this country and abroad, and, much as I 
like the geographic label, bearing in addition to the 
ordinary lettering, a map of the world, marked in color 
to indicate the range of the tree, I have not found any 
map which is capable of being re-produced so as to 
stand our rigorous climate, though in south-central 
Europe such labels are successfully used. The cost of 
making them is also a more expensive item with us than 
on the other side, but I believe that a simple map of 
the world could be transferred to a graniteware enamel, 
by the use of transfer paper, such as the manufacturers 
of graniteware use for putting their own lettering on 
their good.s. We make use of an elliptical label, cast 
of the zinc alloy known as white bronze. Labels of 
this kind are rather expensive, costing from 65 to 75 
cents, as I recall it, for the sizes 
that we use, namely 5^ x 
and 8x4^, the smaller curved f O 
to a radius of 12 inches and the f NOkTH ElROPE j 
larger to a radius of 15 inches, 
so as to adapt them to the size of 
trees upon which they are likely 
to be used. The lettering is raised and, if wished, 
can be brought into contrast with the rest of the label, 
either by painting over the body of the label, leaving 
the letters clean, but in different color, or by leaving 
the body unpainteil and painting over the tops of the 
letters. We fasten them by smooth brass escutcheon 
pins about an inch long (short eno igh so that they may 
draw as the ex))ansion of the tree pushes the label out) 
and the pins are placed through two holes in a vertical 
line. 
All plants too small for a label of this kind have to 
be m irked, either by labels stuck into the ground, or 
twisted about or wired on to the plant. For the formei, 
which we make extensive use of in herbaceous beds and 
the like, and also in front of some trees and shrubs, we 
employ a label stamped out of sheet zinc, of about the 
shape indicated on the enclosed sketch, and some 10 
inches long. On this we write with a dilute solution 
of platinum tetrachloride, which, though more expen- 
sive thin the other inks which may be used on zinc. 
is more permanent. The zinc is thoroughly polished 
off to remove all trace of grease, before writing, and 
is then wiped over with a 
very slightly oily rag after- 
ward, to turn water quickly. 
For small labels, which 
are fastened to the tree or 
shrub, I have no doubt that 
thin copper labels, written 
on with a stylet over a soft 
surface, so that the writing 
is indented, instead of being 
colored, are the most suc- 
cessful, but a zinc label 
written on with platinum te- 
trachloride may be similarly 
used. These labels are in 
the form of very narrow 
triangles, tapering from, say, 
one inch or less to a point, 
in a length of say, six in- 
ches, and the smaller end is 
coiled round and round and 
round one of the twigs. Labels of this kind, however, 
are not suited to display purposes, and for display pur- 
poses we use a quadrangular label, with the angles 
shaped to taste, and measuring about 2x3 inches, on 
which the data are written in platinum tetrachloride, 
while the label is hung by a copper wire very loosely 
twisted on to a twig. No labels of this kind, however, 
can be expected to remain very long in position. They 
require constant care. Either the electrical action set 
up wears the copper or the rim of the hole in the 
zinc label through which the copper wire is passed, or 
the label is neglected long enough to pinch and ampu- 
tate the twig, but with reasonable care they are more 
likely to remain in place than labels stuck in the ground 
in front of the shrub. 
I have tried celluloid and a variety of other labels, 
but do not think that any of them compare with these 
zinc alloy and sheet zinc labels, and yet, as you can see 
from what I have said, these labels are by no means all 
that one could wish. 
I ought to say that in Kew they use sheet lead labels 
for these purposes, the label being of an appropriate 
size and of sheet lead about one-eighth inch thick, in 
which, with steel punches, they stamp the desired let- 
tering. The labels are nailed by a single nail on the 
trunk of a tree, or hung to branches by a wire, as with 
the zinc labels that I have spoken of. The indented 
letters are filled up with white lead or something of the 
kind, to make them easily legible. IVm. Trelease, 
Missouri Botanical Garden, St. Louis, Mo. 
* * * . 
Objections have been found to the greater number 
of garden labels. The cheap, thin wooden ones soon 
rot, and the writing becomes indistinct. The compen- 
sation forced upon the gardener for this, however, is 
the necessity of frequent renewal, and the practice he 
thus gains in writing and learning plant names. 
