Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



somewhat prematurely of their winter coat of bud scales 

 accounts for the provision of this extra shield. The 

 stalk above the stipules quickly grows and carries out 

 the expanding leaf blade. Three leaves usually come 

 out of each bud, and as they delicately unpleat they 

 prove to have five main veins carrying leaf tissue of 

 the freshest, brightest green. 



But running a racfe with the coming leaves are the 

 coming flowers, for in the centre of the leaf stalk is 

 a tiny pointed pink bud which, when the whole winter 

 bud bursts, swells and breaks up into parts showing a 

 rich crimson lustre. Its stalk grows too, and then it 

 falls over and droops ; its many parts prove each a 

 flower-in-the-making, and soon the tiny pointed bud is 

 transformed into a cascade of ruddy flowers and 

 crimson buds, the buds at the bottom, the open flowers 

 atop. Very shortly, though March may still be roaring 

 like a lion, the whole shrub, with its roseate flower 

 cascades drooping beneath the half-formed fresh green 

 foliage, is a perfect picture of vivid spring beauty, with 

 a colour contrast so strong that, to see it at its best, 

 it should be planted in isolation or in a group with 

 only others of its kind with ample space around, or as 

 a garden hedge. Its charm is intensified by the 

 incense-like fragrance that it exhales a scent that 

 memory links with swinging censers in some dim 



ancient aisle. 



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