ASPARAGUS BERRIES. 179 



understand if we look for a moment at the analogous 

 case of the butcher's broom which grows instead of box 

 in the little hedge here by the shrubbery. Butcher's 

 broom is another aberrant lily, and a very close ally of 

 the asparagus tribe ; but it shows us the same peculiari- 

 ties in a rather less marked and advanced degree. I 

 suppose everybody knows its stiff prickly leaves, with a 

 small white six-petalled flower apparently growing out 

 of the very centre of each leaf. In this case it is easier 

 to realize that the seeming leaves are really altered 

 branches first because we can actually see the flowers 

 still budding out of their midst ; and, secondly, because 

 if we look close we can observe a minute scale, which is 

 the rudiment of a true leaf, springing from their midrib 

 just below the point where the flowers are given off. 

 Careful examination, in fact, shows us that the branch 

 has become flattened and leaf -like, but that it still retains 

 all the essential characters of a branch ; because it bears 

 flowers and true leaves, whereas, of course, nobody ever 

 saw one true leaf growing right out of the back of 

 another. It is worthy of notice, too, that, in order to 

 protect the flowers from injury, each seeming leaf twists 

 at the stalk, and so turns its upper surface downward to 

 the ground. In time the female flowers grow into brill- 

 iant scarlet berries, which look as if they were gummed 

 on to the lower side of the leaves ; and these berries con- 

 tain a couple of little hard-shelled nutlets, which are dis- 

 persed by the assistance of birds, as in most other similar 

 cases. 



Now, in butcher's broom, almost all these leaf-like 

 branches still bear flowers and berries on the mid-rib of 

 their expanded surface ; but there are a good many 

 barren branches on each bush, which act as leaves pure 

 and simple ; while a few scales beneath each such branch 



