flowers, followed later by the coarsely-veined, heart-shaped 
leaves. The dried root-stocks, collected after the leaves wither 
in the summer, are much used m medicine. The bloodroot is 
growing, with many other American woodland plants, by the 
shaded path, along the crest of the Flatbush Avenue border 
mound. Both kinds of hepatica (liverleaf) are now flowering, 
Hepatica triloba apparently grading imperceptibly into H. 
acuta. In fact it is impossible, by regarding leaf -characters 
alone, to distinguish these two closely related forms. A series 
of leaves from both species may be so arranged as to show a 
gradual transition from the form characteristic of one species to 
that characteristic of the other. Both species are in a bed on the 
western side of the local flora valley. 
The Shepherd’s-purse, or "pickpocket” ( Capsclla Bursa-pas- 
toris), with white flowers, is common throughout the 
grounds. It has become naturalized from Europe, and flowers 
continuously from early April to late August. The plant varies 
so widely in the characters of its leaves and flowers that one 
botanist claims to have identified over sixty distinct forms or 
elementary species. 
Of the shrubs not native in America one of the earliest 
flowering is the "cornelian cherry” ( Cornus mas) from Japan. 
Its yellow clusters of flowers cover the whole plant weeks before 
the leaves appear. It is often nearly tree-like. Most of these 
shrubs are to be found along the Flatbush Avenue border screen. 
The Tartarian honeysuckle ( Lo?iicera tatarica ) with yellowish- 
white honeysuckle-like flowers, is also in bloom early in April. 
This interesting Asiatic shrub is the ancestor of more than 
thirty horticultural forms, many of them of great beauty and 
utility in landscape effects. Another yellow-flowered shrub, 
scarcely two and one-half feet high, is the Spanish broom 
( Cytisus scoparius ) noteworthy for its profusion of bloom or 
otherwise naked branches. It is becoming naturalized in the 
Eastern States, and wherever thoroughly established makes a 
unique combination in the American landscape. There is a 
large group of the Scotch broom at the north end of the native 
wild flower garden. 
N. T. 
