Daphne 



or four together, every bunch surrounded by dark red 

 scales, and so closely clustered that they seem actually 

 to crowd upon each other. These bunches arise 

 immediately above the spots where leaves grew in the 

 previous year, and always on one-year-old shoots. 



Each flower is cross shaped, getting its form from 

 four rose-coloured petals, so called, though really in 

 the Mezereon the petals have altogether vanished, and 

 it is the sepals usually green in a flower that have 

 become petal-like and pretty. Below the spreading 

 cross of their upper part they unite to form a thick 

 tube, and upon this tube are set eight stamens, mostly 

 head with little stalk. Four of the eight are placed 

 high up near the mouth of the tube and in the centre of 

 the rose-purple sepals, and the remaining four are set 

 lower down the tube and alternating with the upper 

 four. It is largely because the top four are opposite 

 the floral leaves instead of alternating with them, as 

 is the rule, that we consider that the corolla of petals 

 has disappeared during the development of the flower. 

 The stamen heads the anthers are full of yellow 

 pollen and, when ripe, slit open on their inner faces. 



If one next split the flower down, one sees at the 

 very base of the tube a bright green urn-shaped ovary, 

 standing on a tiny pedestal and surmounted by a 

 spreading pale-purple disc, which ovary contains a 

 solitary seed. Indeed the scheme of colour in the 



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