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330 The Romance of Wild Flowers 
branches until they resembled leaves and exercised 
their functions, but had the advantage of being 
leathery and indigestible. Colour is given to this 
supposition by the needle-point at the tip of the oval | 
cladodes, evidently designed to prick the muzzle of | 
any herbivorous creature attempting to do violence 
to the plant. A young shoot shows the true scale- 
like leaf at the base of the cladode, but this soon 
shrivels. Different shoots—sometimes separate plants 
—produce the male and the female flowers, and these 
may be at once detected by the fact that the cladodes 
bearing female flowers are broader than the others. 
As in Asparagus, these are succeeded by brilliant red 
berries, which are very conspicuous against the dark 
background afforded by the cladode. 
The Lily of the Valley (Convallaria mayalis) is 
still found in a wild state in some of our woods. All 
its leaves come direct from the creeping 
rootstock, two or three of them with their 
bases sheathed one in the other. The 
broad bell-shaped nodding white flowers 
are borne on an arching scape. The organs 
are all contained within the perianth, the 
Lily of the Valley stamens close round the style with. the 
anthers able to drop their pollen upon the 
edges of the stigma if cross-fertilisation has not 
taken place soon after the flower opens. I fear 
this plant must be included in the list of vegetable 
frauds, for by means of a delicious odour it creates 
the hope and belief among certain bees that it 
provides nectar for friendly callers. This appears 
to be an error, yet the hive-bee constantly goes on 
that errand, and has to content herself with pollen, 
