SWISS FLOWERS. 105 



84. Daphne. 



(PLATE XLVIL) 



The Mezereum, one of this family, is welcomed among 

 the earliest flowers of springs but its bare branches do not 

 add to its beauty, and its colour has a dulness about it. D. 

 cneorum (Fig. 84) is a much more elegant shrub, about a 

 foot highj its brown, often straggling, branches bearing 

 heads of from twelve to twenty short-stalked blossoms, 

 closely packed together, surrounded by the rather small, 

 smooth, shining, leathery, lanceolate-eliptical, leaves. The 

 flowers have no corolla, but a coloured corolla-like calyx, 

 consisting of a long horn-shaped tube opening into four seg- 

 ments, not very deeply cut, which therefore give the blossom 

 an angular look. Stamens eight, with scarcely any style. 

 The flowers are purple-rose colour, and have a very sweet 

 scent. The berry is orange. Rocks of the Jura, Maderaner 

 Thai, meadows of the Eastern Alps. 



85. Orchis Nigritella. 



(PLATE XLVL) 



Switzerland is not remarkable for Orchids, though most 

 of those that are known in England can be found there, and 



