336 FLOWERING SHRUBS 



I cannot refrain from closing this brief mention of the Rose 

 with a quotation from a poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford, 

 the sweetest singer of songs Canada ever knew : 



'•' The rose was given to Man for this : 

 He, sudden seeing it in later years, 

 Should swift remember Love's first lingering kiss. 

 And Grief's last lingering tears. 



■< Or, being blind, should feel its yearning soul 

 Knit all its piercing perfume round his own, 

 Till he should see on Memory's ample scroll 

 All roses he had known." 



WESTERN MOUNTAIN ASH 



Pyrus sa?nbucifolia. Rose Family 



Leaves : alternate, pinnate ; leaflets seven to fifteen, lanceolate, short- 

 pointed at the apex, sharply serrate, glabrous and dark green above, pale 

 and more or less pubescent beneath. Flowers : white, in terminal com- 

 pound cymes ; calyx-tube urn-shaped, five-lobed, not bracteolate : petals 

 five, spreading, short-clawed. Fruit : a small, red, berry-like pome, bitter. 



This is the Rowan Tree of the mountain regions, and a 

 handsome shrub or tree it is, sometimes attaining a height 

 of twenty feet, but usually growing only from six to fifteen 

 feet high. 



The leaves are dark green on the top and a much paler hue 

 beneath. The flower-buds are a delicate shade of creamy pink, 

 and turn white when they expand in the sunshine, the wide- 

 open blossoms having a darkened appearance in their centres, 

 caused by the numerous stamens. This shrub is found at 

 great altitudes, growing close to the ^(\g^ of perpetual snow 

 and bearing quantities of splendid foliage and huge clustered 

 cymes of soft-tinted flowers, which diffuse an extremely 

 pungent odour. 



