38 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
tree, you will see for yourself how nicely the shapes 
and sizes of the leaves and the length of their stalks 
are adapted .to secure economy of space without over- 
lapping; and how the thickness of the branch has 
relation to the strain it has to bear in the weight of 
the leaves. 
Looked at from this point of view, you will find 
considerable charm in a comparison of the foliage of 
all these species of Apple-roses. They differ from 
the Dog Roses in the fact that the leaves are not 
compound, but simple, some slightly toothed, some 
strongly toothed, some deeply lobed. One, however— 
the Mountain Ash—/as got compound leaves, more so 
even than those of the Dog Roses, so like an Ash-leaf 
that it is called Mountain Ash, though having no 
relationship to the Ash. It has been suggested that 
this departure from the leaf-form of all the other 
Apples may be due to the windy, mountainous districts 
it chiefly affects, where a leaf of the normal form and 
of proportionate size would be torn off by its resistance 
to high winds, or might lead to the uprooting of the 
tree or the snapping of its trunk. It is probable that 
the Rowan has also found small fruits “ pay ” best, for 
its little apples are in great demand by birds—so great 
that bird-catchers use it for the purpose of baiting their 
snares, and one of its names is Fowler’s Service-tree ; 
its scientific name, wucuparia, indicates that it is good 
for “ going fowling.” 
But we must hurry on, for there are many more 
British Rose-groups that must be considered, simpler 
in character than these highly-developed Roses and 
Apples—humble plants which there can be little doubt 
show us what the original Roses were lke, and also 
