Fortunately flowering trees are showy, as a rule, only when in bloom. Otherwise they would get stale, like a bed of Baby Rambler rose or any other "ever-blooming" bore. But purple leaves are vociferously purple for months at a time, and that is why we love them. Trees with abnormally coloured foliage make the most show for the money, and we love to advertise. The English don't. Nature almost never gives us purple or yellow leaves — except in autumn. No place can be restful unless green is dominant. Of purple, golden, and silver tones we get plenty for daily purposes in our ordinary trees, but bronze-leaved ashes and purple elms, plums, and catalpas are tiresome to live with. You may be greatly excited at the first sight of a huge blotch of yellow on the landscape, but when you come close you find that it is only an elm, oak, poplar, or box elder gone wrong. And after you have resolved about twenty such cases into mere yellow journalism, the sensation gets a bit sickening.

• For important articles on flowering trees see The Garden Magazine, Vol. VI., p. 128 and Vol. VIII., pp. 330-332.

The plants just mentioned are what William Robinson calls "tree rubbish." The dignified and lasting members of the group are the purple beech and purple Norway maple. It is right, also, that we should pay big sums for Japanese maples, although they are uncertain about growing. But even these we overdo.