Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



and irritated mouth greatly to regret the lapse of 

 thought 



Still, as a medicinal plant the Mezereon has ranked 

 high in the past. It was a principal ingredient in 

 the celebrated ''Lisbon diet drink" of the eighteenth 

 century, and pieces of the bark, macerated in vinegar, 

 were used for very effectual blisters. Ointment, too, 

 was made from both bark and berries, while dried 

 pieces of the large and woody root were one of the 

 many infallible cures for toothache advocated by our 

 forbears. In spite of the fact that Mezereon berries 

 have served as poison for foxes and wolves, according 

 to Linnaeus, birds appreciate them greatly, robins and 

 blackbirds in particular, while sparrows will carefully 

 pick the single seed out of an unripe berry and reject 

 the pulp. The seeds germinate freely, and it is doubt- 

 less due to the kind offices of the birds that the 

 shrub has become naturalised among us. 



The leaves are only beginning to appear as the 

 flowers pass over. The opening leaf-buds form quaint 

 little tufts at the very tip of the shoots above the 

 flowers, or from lateral buds lower down. Each bud 

 is long and pointed, and consists of many leaves rolled 

 one round another; and as the leaves successively 

 detach themselves and spread back they form a cir- 

 cular disc, in the centre of which the yet unfolded 

 leaves stand as a circular pinnacle. At one stage 



