Jan. 26, 1883.] 



• KNOWLEDGE • 



49 



A NATURALIST'S YEAR. 



By Grant Allek. 



v.— GORSE BLOSSOMS. 



OUT on the common here the flowers of the season are 

 now few and far between indeed. To be sure, there 

 are some small blossoms that almost never desert us, even 

 when the frost is on the ground. Yonder small white shep- 

 herd's purse under shelter of the furze-bushes is one such 

 example ; and here are a pair of others, little blue ground- 

 veronica, and purple laniium, with its arched red hoods. 

 Most of tliese hardier native winter-flowering plants, how- 

 ever, are mere insignificant creeping weeds, scarcely noticed 

 at all bv the average observer. But there is at least one 

 English winter blossom whose prettiness and sweetness 

 nobody can deny, and that is the larger gorse, which grows 

 so plentifully on all our heaths and commons. Everybody 

 knows tliat gorse flowers all the year round, though it is 

 not everybody who knows the real reason why it does so. 

 The fact is, we have two distinct species of furze in 

 England ; the greater gorse, which flowers from autumn to 

 spring ; and the dwarf gorse, which flowers alternately with 

 it, from spring to autumn. The two plants difler, not 

 only in stature and time of blossoming, but also in hairiness 

 and in the size of the tiny bracts that enclose the calyx. As 

 soon as one has begun to set its small woolly pods, the 

 other begins to flower in its stead ; and so between them 

 they keep up an endless succession of blossoms for the bees, 

 and eflectually ensure the well-known principle that kissing 

 is never out of fashion. 



Gorse belongs by family to the pea-flower tribe, but it is 

 one of the least pea-like and most bushy of our English 

 papilionaceous plants. When it grows first from the seed- 

 bean, it sends up young shoots with trefoil leaves, after the 

 fashion of so many other pea-flowers, such as clover and 

 nonsuch ; but as it grows older, its leaves become longer 

 and narrower, until at last they assume the familiar form 

 of long stiff' green prickles. This peculiar type of leaf, as 

 well as the bushy character, is due to the nature of the 

 places in which the furzes grow. They arc by habit 

 denizens of wild and open spots, much overrun (in the 

 original state at least) by herbivorous animals. Under 

 such circumstances, only those plants would survive which 

 were least attractive to, or best defended against, the 

 aggressive ruminants. Now, we all know that the pea 

 tribe as a whole are great favourites with animals, both on 

 account of their tender foliage, and of their richly-stored 

 seeds ; so much so that many of them are specially grown 

 for fodder, as in the case of purple clover, Dutch clover, 

 crimson trifolium, lucerne, nonsuch, vetches, horse-beans, 

 and many others. Hence the only peaflower plants which 

 succeed well in open situations (except, of course, when 

 artificially protected by man) are those with very stringy 

 stems and hairy pods, like lady's-fingers, or those which 

 have assumed the bushy character, like broom or gorse. 

 Even broom, however, has been less successful in this 

 respect than gorse, for the one has comparatively large 

 and broad trefoil leaves, perfectly edible, though not very 

 nutritious ; while the other has stout prickles in their 

 place, which no animal can venture to attack. The thistle- 

 loving donkey himself shrinks from the well-armed branches 

 of the furze ; and so the veriest suburban common or 

 village green is commonly coNered in great patches with its 

 dark green foliage and its pretty golden bloom. iS'o other 

 British plant whatsoever has managed to acquire an equally 

 deterrent and protective habit. To the last, however, furze 

 bushes retain some memory of their original broom-Uke 

 foliage ; for if you look closely on the lower branches, or 



near the base of the stem, you will often find a few leaves 

 of a long narrow type, not unlike the topmost leaves of the 

 true broom. 



The flowers of the gorse form its great attraction in the 

 eyes of the world at large ; and, indeed, they are so 

 beautiful when fvdly out that one can hardly wonder at 

 Linn;eus, who, when he first beheld the bush in all the 

 golden glory of its blossoming season, fell down on his 

 knees and thanked God fervently for the creation of so 

 exquisite a plant. Just at present, the ilowers are only 

 struggling out by twos and threes in little patches, and the 

 branches are covered for the most part with small brown 

 hairy knobs, the unopened buds, which are only waiting 

 for a spell of more genial weather to burst their dusky 

 sheaths and herald spring before its time. This hairiness 

 of the calyx is one of the best signs by which you can tell 

 the greater gorse from its dw arf congener ; while at the 

 same time the two little bracts which protect the base are 

 here much larger than in the summer-flowering species. 

 Both these peculiarities show that the winter-blooming 

 gorse finds some special necessity for protecting its young 

 flower-buds, which is not ctjually felt by its summer 

 neighbour : though what exactly the danger it has to guard 

 against may be I cannot say. Even today, in spite of 

 lowering cloud and chilly weather, a solitary bumVjle-bee 

 has found his way to the sweet-scented blossoms, and is 

 taking his fill from the luscious honey at the base of the 

 petals. The way the gorse manages its fertilisation is ex- 

 tremely curious, and I can see it at work here under my 

 very eyes as the bee bustles about in his burly fashion from 

 flower to flower. He lights on the keel or lowennost petal, 

 which has two little pits or depressions, one on each side, 

 fitted exactly to receive liL? feet ; and his weight then 

 presses down the keel, so that the stamens within fly up 

 elastically, and dust his breast all over with their golden 

 pollen. As the stigma (or sensitive surface of the ovary) 

 is enclosed in the stamen-tube, it also comes into contact 

 with his breast at the same time, and rubs oflT it some of 

 the pollen brought from the last flower which he happened 

 to ^•isit in the course of his rounds. You can push down 

 the keel of a gorse blossom for yourself with your finger, 

 and you will see the pollen fly out in a little cloud, like 

 spray from a child's squirt ; only you must take care to 

 experiment upon a fresh flower, not yet visited by the bees,, 

 or else you will find the keel already depressed, and the' 

 pollen shed before your arrival. The bees themselves know 

 at once which flowers are fresh, and which have been pre- 

 viously rifled, by observing the position of the keel ; and 

 they never waste their precious time by searching for non- 

 existent honey in an exploded blossom. This mode of 

 fertilisation, though found in gorse, broom, genista, and 

 several similar peaflowers, is by no means the only method 

 adopted by the tribe ; there are many other devices in other 

 plants of the same family, some of which I may, per- 

 haps, have occasion to explain when the bird's-foot trefoil 

 and the purple clover come into blossom in the long 

 summer days. Even within the limits of a single closely- 

 related group, the variety and ingenuity of nature is prac- 

 tically infinite. 



After the bee has impregnated the flower, the pollen left 

 on the stigma begins to penetrate the young pod, and 

 quickens into life the tiny embryo beans that lie within it. 

 Then the pod swells slowly, and assumes its characteristic 

 stumpy shape. The beans are few in number, and much 

 compressed against one another ; and the pod is extremely 

 short, scarcely exceeding the calyx Ln length. There is a 

 good reason for all this, and also for the stifl' woolly hairs 

 that clothe the outer surface. All the peaflowers produce 

 rich seeds, abounding in starch ; and many of them are 



