90 SUMMER FLOWERS. 



Of these we find flowering during the early summer, a shrub 

 growing in hedges and thickets, known as the Spindle Tree,"^ 

 and belonging to the Celastraceous family. It is rather an in- 

 significant plant, except when in fruit, but the curious form 

 and bright colour of this fruit render it later in the sum- 

 mer a rather conspicuous object. It is a smooth shrub, of 

 about five feet high, with ovate-oblong or lanceolate pointed 

 deciduous leaves, and axiUary cymes of small green flowers ; 

 these have a flat calyx of four or five short lobes, and an equal 

 number of larger petals, an equal number also of stamens al- 

 ternating with the petals and united with them on a slightly 

 thickened disk which covers the base of the calyx. The ovary 

 is immersed in this disk with a short protruding style, and 

 becomes a four-angled (sometimes three- or five-angled) red 

 capsule, which opens, when ripe, at the angles, and exposes the 

 seeds enveloped in a briglit orange-coloured arillus — the arillus 

 being a part of the fruit corresponding with what is known as 

 mace in the fruit of the nutmeg. 



Another unattractive Calyciflore blossoming early in the 

 summer is the Common Buckthorn,t found occasionally in 

 hedges and bushy places. This belongs to the Rhamnaceous 

 family, and is a shrub or small tree, with spreading branches, 

 which sometimes become spiny. It has ovate toothed leaves 

 marked by a few prominent veins, mostly originating below 

 the middle. The flowers are small, green, staminate or pistil- 

 late, clustered in the axils of the leaves ; they have each four 

 or five small calyx-teeth, and within these as many still smaller 

 petals. The staminate flowers have an abortive ovary, broader 

 petals, and four or five stamens alternating with the calyx- 

 teeth, and inserted on a disk which lines the base of the calyx. 



* Euonymtis enropoeus — Plate 11 A. 

 \~R7iamttus catharticus — Plate 11 B. 



