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PARK AND CEMETERY. 
PARK ASPECT OF NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN 
VIEW IN HERBACEOUS GAP.UEN, NEW YORK BOTANICAE GARDEN, 
The whole plan of the development 
of the New York Botanical Garden has 
been designed in such a manner as to 
include all the features of a public park, 
and it has been carried out in close co- 
operation with park commissioners and 
engineers of the Borough of the Bronx. 
A recent issue of the Bulletin of the 
Garden. Vol. 9, No. 34, gives a complete 
descriptive guide to the collections and 
to the park and landscape features of the 
grounds. 
The Garden is situated in the northern 
part of Bronx Park, north of Pelham 
avenue, the reservation including nearly 
400 acres of land of a very diversified 
character, furnishing natural landscapes 
of great beauty and variety. 
All the roads, paths and forest trails 
have been so located as to do no damage 
to the natural features of the grounds, 
particular care having been taken to save 
all possible standing trees, and to avoid 
disturbing natural slopes. 
The plan of the driveway and path 
systems called for the construction of 
si.x bridges; three of these, first, the lake 
bridge, crossin.g the valley of the lakes 
near the museum building; second,- the 
long bridge, which carries the driveway 
across the valley of the Bronx River 
north of the hemlock forest; and, third, 
the upper bridge which crosses the Bronx 
River at the northern end of the Garden, 
have been carried out in masonr}’ arches 
from designs by Mr. John R. Brinley, 
landscape engineer of the Garden. A 
unicjue boulder foot-bridge of five arches, 
just at the northern end of the hemlock 
forest, was built from designs by the 
same engineer. The concrete-steel bridge 
spanning the gorge of the Bronx below 
the waterfall was built by the Park De- 
partment; and the sixth bridge in the 
plan is a foot-bridge, temporarily built 
of wood, ultimately designed in concrete, 
crossing the Bronx River in the north 
meadows. 
The bridge dedicated to Linnaeus, 
which carries the Pelham Parkway across 
the Bronx, is appropriately located be- 
tween the Botanical Garden and the Zoo- 
logical Park. 
The park treatment further contem- 
plates the planting of shade trees where 
these are needed along the driveways, 
and much of this has been done, a great 
many kinds of trees ha\'ing been used, 
and many shrub plantations have been 
set out, especially at roadway and path 
intersections, utilizing considerable num- 
bers of the same kinds of shrubs at dif- 
ferent points. 
The general planting plan includes 
provision for partially surrounding the 
grounds, except at entrances, with bor- 
der screens. This planting has already 
been accomplished along the western 
and northern boundaries, and partly along 
the southern and eastern boundaries. 
These screens are composed of a very 
great variety of trees and shrubs, vari- 
ously grouped, and average about fifty 
feet in width. 
A feature of this border screen is an 
old-fashioned flower border, composed of 
herbaceous plants in large variety, which 
extends from the Two-hundredth street, 
or Bedford Park avenue, entrance north- 
ward to the New York Central Railway 
Station and thence to the Mosholu Park- 
way entrance, and there is a similar 
plantation at the elevated railway station; 
here herbaceous perennials are massed 
in front of a belt of flowering shrubs 
which in turn are backed by the trees of 
the border screen, and so selected that 
some of them are in bloom throughout 
the season. Among the plants used in 
this old-fashioned flower border are daf- 
fodils, crocuses, irises, phloxes, paeonies, 
rose mallows, sunflowers, cone-flowers, 
coreopsis, columbines and many others. 
In order to provide a method for view- 
ing the collections under guidance, an aid 
leaves the front door of the Museum 
Building every week-day afternoon at 3 
o’clock, to escort all who may wish to 
accompany him. 
The natural deciduous woodlands of 
the reservation are, collectively, over 40 
acres in area, mostly in the central and 
southern portions of the tract, where 
they occupy rocky ridges and some of 
the valleys between these ridges. Along 
the Bronx River, from the boulder bridge 
north to the north meadows, are several 
acres of river woods, subject to overflow 
at freshet periods. The woodlands con- 
tain many species of native trees and a 
much greater number of kinds of native 
shrubs and herbaceous plants; the un- 
dergrowth is, locally, very dense. They 
are typical illustrations of forests of our 
part of the country, and are treated and 
protected as such. Dead and decrepit 
trees are removed and dead branches 
pruned off from time to time; where 
necessary, j'oung trees are planted to re- 
BOULDER PJRIDGE. NEW YORK BOTANICAL GARDEN. 
