Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



Flowering finishes in the early part of May, and 

 the flush fades from the shrub, while the new foliage 

 springs to its full development. Each little receptacle 

 on which a flower is set becomes a tiny water 

 reservoir for the service of the developing fruit. When 

 the season is very dry, much of the fruit falls. In 

 August the berries are ripe, but out of each cluster of 

 twenty to thirty flowers less than one-third give rise 

 to fruit. Each berry is blue-black, and is coated with 

 wax, which gives it a beautiful " bloom." It contains 

 many seeds. But in spite of the fact that its relatives 

 produce berries so delectable as the red and black 

 currants, this shrub throws all its desirableness into 

 its flowers, and its fruits, to quote David Douglas, 

 are " of so musky and unpleasant a flavour that the 

 berries continue to hang on the bushes throughout 

 the winter, even the birds refusing to make them a 

 part of their food." 



This "musky and unpleasant flavour" we may 

 correlate with the incense-like fragrance of the shrub. 

 For this fragrance, unlike that of many plants, has 

 no reference to insects, but is the plant's method of 

 warning off browsing animals, a sign manual of an oil 

 contained in myriads of little glands over the whole of 

 its surface branches, leaves, flowers which oil is utterly 

 distasteful to the palate of those that browse. And thus 

 does the Flowering Currant defend itself from enemies. 



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