GUELDER ROSE, 93 



row. The guelder rose differs, however, 

 from the wayfaring-tree in one conspicuous 

 particular. It has a row of large snow-white 

 flowers on the outside of each bunch, at least 

 twenty times as big as the central ones. 

 They look almost as if they were the blossoms 

 of some other and larger plant, deftly ar- 

 ranged or pinned by some mischievous boy 

 around a bunch of elder blossom, so as to 

 hoax the unwary botanist with a cunning 

 deception. But they are real component ele- 

 ments of the flower-head for all that ; and it 

 is these self-same odd, overgrown outer 

 flowers which make the guelder rose so inte- 

 resting a plant in the eyes of the evolutionary 

 biologist. 



Looking close at the small central florets 

 one can see at a glance that each has a little 

 tubular corolla of five united petals, with 

 stamens and pistil in the centre, enclosing the 

 germ of a future berry. But the big expanded 

 outer blossoms are built on quite a different 

 plan. They consist entirely of a large 



