Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



wonderful structures. In the bud, as our picture shows, 

 they are like nothing so much as pink-and-white 

 " sweets," the crinkled "comfits" beloved of children. 

 Then out of a tiny five-pointed sepal ring rises the 

 coloured corolla, folded rather into the shape of a 

 bouquet holder, topped with a ring of ten projecting 

 bosses. Above these bosses rises a ten-ridged pink 

 dome. This dainty shape is maintained until the bud 

 is considerably enlarged, then though the lower part, 

 the "bouquet holder," remains as before, the rose-pink 

 dome unpleats and opens out into a shallow cup, white 

 inside and ringed with ten pockets. In Ruskin's words 

 the inside of each flower is " like the beating-out of 

 bosses in hollow silver, beaten out apparently in each 

 petal by the stamens instead of a hammer." In the 

 centre of the bottom of the cup is the opening into 

 the corolla tube, this opening being circled with a 

 crinkled pink line. Up through the tube rise ten 

 stamens, whose brown heads at the outset are caught 

 back, one in each of the pockets. In the very centre 

 of the flower is a shiny-white, pink-tipped column, 

 which leads down to a seed-case frosted all over with 

 silvery hairs at the base of the tube. 



As the sun shines on the flowers the bent-back 

 stamen filaments in their constrained position become 

 in a state of great tension " sensitive " and at the 



slightest touch from an insect they suddenly spring 



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