"Dwarf Trees" from Mrs. Robert C. Morris'
Dragons and Cherry Blossoms


        Mrs. Robert C. Morris (c.1865-?), born Alice A. Parmelee in New Haven, CT, she married Yale law grad Robert Clark Morris (b. 1868, CT) of New York on June 24, 1890.  She later sailed "into the Port of Yokohama one bright April morning."  The resulting thin-written volume with illustrations, Dragons and Cherry Blossoms, tells of some of her adventures during several weeks also in Tokio, Kioto, and Nara.  Over two decades later, "Trails In and About Yellowstone National Park" was prepared by her after she returned from an extensive horseback tour of the park which occupied the entire summer of 1917. 1
      Dragons and Cherry Blossoms (1896):

       "Finally we drew up before a florist's shop, and Eba [one of the jinriksha men] proudly led the way to the shrine of his peculiar pilgrimage.

Dwarf potted pine from Mrs. Robert C. Morris' Dragons and Cherry Blossoms, 1896

       "He stopped before a small potted plant, and pointed at it with a smile.  I was amazed to see a tiny pine-tree not over six inches high, but perfectly formed in the smallest detail.  I had seen many other Japanese experiments in minuteness, but this surpassed them all.  Eba was delighted with my satisfaction, and informed me that this thrifty dwarf had been growing for many years.  It was to be on exhibition for that day only, and this explained his anxiety [262] that I should visit the shop that morning."  2

NOTES

1       Who's Who in America, 1908-1909 (Chicago: A. N. Marquis & Company), pp. 1340 and 1342.

   Herringshaw's National Library of American Biography, Vol. IV (Chicago: American Publishers Association; 1914), pp. 235.  Mr. Morris is not listed in this volume.

Morris, Mrs. Robert C.  Dragons and Cherry Blossoms (New York: Dodd, Mead & Company, 1896), pg. 17.

Rules and Regulations, Wind Cave National Park, 1920, Washington: Government Printing Office, pg. 55.


2       Morris, pg. 261.  Illustrations by Thomas F. Moessner, per this September 1896 Atlantic Monthly ad.

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