White and Greenish 



ous little flowers grouped within their circle that attend to the 

 serious business of life. The shrub found it good economy to 

 increase the size of the outer row of flowers, even at the expense 

 of their reproductive organs, simply to add to the conspicuous- 

 ness of the clusters, when so many blossoms enter into fierce 

 competition with them for insect trade. Many beetles, attracted 

 by the white color, come to feed on pollen, and often destroy the 

 anthers in their greed. But the lesser bees {Andrena chiefly), 

 and more flies, whose short tongues easily obtain the accessible 

 nectar, render constant service. These welcome guests we have 

 to thank for the clusters of coral-red berries that make the shrub 

 even more beautiful in September than in May. 



Because it sometimes sends its straggling branches down- 

 ward in loops that touch the ground and trip up the unwary 

 pedestrian, who presumably hobbles off in pain, the bush 

 received a name with which the stumbler will be the last to find 

 fault. From the bark of the Wayfaring Tree of the Old World 

 {V. lantana), the tips of whose procumbent branches often take 

 root as they lie on the ground, is obtained bird-lime. No warm, 

 sticky scales enclose the buds of our hardy hobble-bush ; the 

 only protection for its tender baby foliage is in the scurfy coat on 

 its twigs ; yet with this thin covering, or without it, the young 

 leaves safely withstand the intense cold of northern winters. 



The chief beauty of the High Bush-Cranberry, Cranberry 

 Tree, or Wild Guelder-rose {V. Opulus) lies in its clusters of bright 

 red, oval, very acid " berries" (drupes), that are commonly used by 

 country people as a substitute for the fruit they so closely resemble. 

 This is a symmetrical, erect, tall, smooth shrub, found in moist, low 

 ground. Among the Berkshires it grows in perfection. From 

 New Jersey, Michigan, and Oregon far northward is its range ; 

 also in Europe and Asia. The broadly ovate, saw-edged, three- 

 lobed leaves are more or less hairy along the veins on the under- 

 side. Like the hobble-bush, this one produces an outer circle of 

 showy, neutral flowers, as advertisements, on its peduncled, flat 

 cluster; and small, perfect ones, to reproduce the species, in June 

 or July. As the flies and small pollen-collecting bees move rap- 

 idly over a corymb to feast on the layer of nectar freely exposed 

 for their benefit, they usually cross-fertilize the flowers ; for, as 

 Miiller pointed out, the anthers and stigmas of each come in con- 

 tact with different parts of the insect's feet or tongue. Beetles, 

 which visit the clusters in great numbers, often prove destructive 

 visitors. Kerner claims that nectar is secreted in the leaves of 

 this species, whether in the two glands that appear at the top of 

 the petioles or not, he does not say. Of what possible advantage 

 to the plant could such an arrangement be ? Plants, as well as 

 humans, are not in business for philanthropy. 

 17 257 



