Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



glorious blueness that it should be prized and en- 

 couraged. 



Its foliage is bold and rather like that of a syringa. 

 A leaf may be about three inches long, bright green 

 and smooth on the top, pale and velvety beneath, and 

 the blades are marked by a very fine saw-like edge. 



The spikes of blossom appear in July and August 

 and are built up of numerous minor clusters, each of 

 which carries on a single stalk a number of flowers, 

 each flower being itself on a fine stalk. Altogether, 

 over two hundred blossoms may be comprised in a 

 single spike. The tiny flowers when examined under a 

 hand glass show a curious structure. There are five 

 blue sepals whose points curl inwards. Between them 

 stand up five very odd blue petals, each having a thin 

 limb carrying a hood. Opposite these petals, indeed half 

 covered by them, are five stamens, an arrangement 

 that is peculiar, because, as a rule, the stamens 

 alternate with the petals and are opposite the sepals, 

 and the usual explanation given by botanists, in a case 

 such as the Ceanothus, is that a whole ring of stamens 

 has dropped out in the course of time. In the 

 centre is a flattish seed-case invested with a honey disc. 

 Ultimately the fruit is a dry little black case containing 

 three seeds and protected by the dried-up calyx. 



Ceanothus belongs to the Buckthorn family 



Rhamnacecz but its particular genus is quite un- 



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