Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



on different shrubs of the same species. In all the 

 bells there is a small calyx of four sepals, in all there 

 is a brilliant corolla cut deeply up into four lobes, 

 which spread somewhat outwards. Honey is concealed 

 within the bell at the top. But now come differences. 

 Sometimes on turning up a flower we find a thick 

 cylindrical yellow head, like a clapper, thrusting itself 

 forward and supported on two tall pillars. This repre- 

 sents two stamens whose heads are touching, and if 

 the flower has been open a short time this head will 

 be coated with pollen, for the anthers open outwards dis- 

 closing their pollen contents. Half-way down, between 

 the pillars, is a greenish object the stigma looking 

 like a couple of stout oval wings, set upon a short, 

 thick green column the style that itself stands upon 

 the seed-case. This form of flower seems almost always 

 in this country to characterise the shoots of the trailing 

 species, Forsythia suspensa. 



In other flowers, notably those found on the erect 

 stiffer shrub, Forsythia viridissima, the ovary column 

 is longer than the stamens and projects right beyond 

 them, carrying out into prominence the two broad 

 green wings of the stigma; and somewhat below it, 

 standing one on either side like sentinels, are the two 

 stamens, their heads now kept well apart by the green 

 central pillar. 



But though one kind of flower-structure predomi- 



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