68 PROSERPINA. 



cluster. There may be fewer, or more ; but the bog- 

 heath is apt to run into something near that number. 

 They all grow together as close as they can, and on one 

 side of the supporting branch only. The natural effect 

 would be to bend the branch down; but the branch won't 

 have that, and so leans back to carry them. Now you see 

 the use of drawing the profile in the middle figure: it 

 shows you the exactly balanced setting of the group, 

 not drooping, nor erect ; but with a disposition to droop, 

 tossed up by the leaning back of the stem. Then, grow- 

 ing as near as they can to each other, those in the middle 

 get squeezed. Here is another quite special character. 

 Some flowers don't like being squeezed at all (fancy a 

 squeezed convolvulus !) ; but these heather bells like it, 

 and look all the prettier for it, not the squeezed ones 

 exactly, by themselves, but the cluster altogether, by 

 their patience. 



Then also the outside ones get pushed into a sort of 

 star-shape, and in front show the colour of all their sides, 

 and at the back the rich green cluster of sharp leaves that 

 hold them ; all this order being as essential to the plant 

 as any of the more formal structures of the bell itself. 



6. But the bog-heath has usually only one cluster of 

 flowers to arrange on each branch. Take a spray of ling 

 (Frontispiece), and you will find that the richest piece of 

 Gothic spire-sculpture would be dull and graceless beside 

 the grouping of the floral masses in their various life. 

 But it is difficult to give the accuracy of attention neces- 



