Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



and is a most delightful shrub, unusually elegant for 

 an evergreen, with lissom, fine spray-like branches that 

 droop gracefully. An impression of lightness is given 

 by the tininess of the oval leaves, which are set in 

 pairs upon minute stalks in such a way that on each 

 branchlet they all lie in the same plane, giving rather 

 the general appearance of the fronds of a maidenhair 

 fern. It is curious that the leaves in each pair are 

 not exactly alike, their outline is slightly different and 

 one is darker than the other. 



The tiny yellow clusters of flowers, that are borne 

 in such profusion at the ends and on the under sides 

 of the branches and often half hidden from sight, are 

 yellow from the four stamens that project from each 

 minute flower and not from any yellow petals, for the 

 flowers do not possess such, each blossom just consist- 

 ing of a green, four-lobed calyx, four fleshy flattened 

 glands, four yellow stamens, and a seed-case with a 

 short, blunt column on top. The filaments of the 

 stamens are flattened and the anthers slit on their 

 outer side to allow the fertilising pollen to escape. 

 But though the clusters are half hidden, they yet 

 reveal their presence unmistakably, for they throw off 

 a most delicious scent, reminding one of vanilla. 

 It is in April that the myriads of these minute 

 flower clusters give a transient hint of colour to the 



green of the branches, but the blossoming is soon 



70 



