208 



into their lovely throats, touched so softly with yel- 

 lowish dots, like little golden clouds that lie breathless 

 on a breathless sky. The corollas are five-parted and 

 bell-shaped, with long sweeping stamens, five to ten 

 in number, reaching far out from the corollas' throats. 

 The stamens are often noticeably curved. The flower 

 stems (pedicels) are clammy (viscid) and hairy (pu- 

 bescent). The umbel-like clusters of the flowers break 

 out from cone-like buds which set the autumn before 

 the season's blooming. These cone-shaped buds are 

 the winter mark of the rhododendron. The fruit is 

 an oblong pod. 



Eibes aureum. (Missouri Currant. Golden or Buf- 

 falo Currant. No. 96.) If you are in the north- 

 western part of the Ramble in the lovely days of May, 

 when those entrancing bursts of warm sunshine leap 

 as with a heart full of love from behind pearl-edged 

 clouds, and bring out to the full the starry beauty of 

 the dancing blossoms, look then for the bright golden 

 flowers of this cheery shrub. When the sunshine is 

 full upon them, they glow like Wordsworth's daffo- 

 dils. If you take the path that leads off to the left 

 from the west Bridge, and follow it to its second left- 

 hand offshoot, you will find a good clump of this 

 Missouri Currant not very far from the corner made 

 by the fork of this second offshoot of the Walk to the 

 left. It stands quite close to a Siberian pea tree here. 

 Its lovely golden flowers will surely make you stop 

 a moment in your ramble, with their bright merry hues 

 burning up to you with five spreading lobes. The 

 conspicuous lobes are part of the calyx, not petals of 



