93 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



Meadow-sweet (Spircea ulmarid). 



Our first encounter with the Queen of the Meadows, or 

 Meadow-sweet, is an event to be remembered. It will probably 

 be beside a shallow stream, and for a long distance we shall 

 see the continuous line of thick clumps, with the handsome, 

 much-divided radical leaves standing erect around the taller 

 furrowed stems. Individually the creamy- white flowers are 

 minute, but combined in large dense cymes they are very 

 conspicuous. There is an airy grace about the plant that is 

 particularly charming, quite apart from the attraction of its 

 powerful fragrance. 



Meadow-sweet has a short perennial rootstock, the leaves 

 are interruptedly pinnate (see p. 63), the terminal leaflet three- 

 lobed. The undersides are downy and white. The stem- 

 leaves are provided with broad-toothed stipules. In spite of 

 their fragrance the flowers produce no honey, but, attracted by 

 the sweet odour, insects visit them in great numbers, and from 

 the closeness of the flowers cannot help fertilizing them. The 

 calyx has four or five lobes, turned back ; the petals are four 

 or five, the carpels vary from five to nine, curiously twisted, 

 and surrounded by a large number of stamens. It flowers 

 from June to August, and may be found beside watercourses 

 and in wet meadows, as well as by the sides of streams and 

 rivers. 



There is one other British species : 



The Dropwort (Spirceafilipendula), which grows far away from the haunts of the 

 Meadow-sweet, delighting in high dry pastures, chalk downs, and gravelly heaths. 

 He that has seen ulmaria will not fail to identify filipendula as the sister of the 

 meadow queen, for though much smaller it is in general appearance very similar. 

 The unopened flowers are rosy, but the inside of the petals is of the same creamy- 

 white as in Meadow-sweet. It is not fragrant. Flowers June and July. 



A third species, the Willow-leaved Spiraea (S. salicifolia), may occasionally be 

 met in plantations ; but it is not a native. 



