XVI 

 MEXICAN ORANGE AND SKIMMIA 



Choisya ternata . . . . Mexican Orange 

 Skimmia Fortunei 



japonica, or S. oblata or 



S. fragrans (in the 



male form} 



1 



Mexican Orange is always a handsome 

 shrub. Its evergreen foliage is dark and 

 shining, and any appearance of undue heaviness 

 is avoided by the cutting up of the large leathery leaves 

 each into three leaflets, leaflets that are broad at the 

 top and narrow at the point of attachment. To this 

 trifid division it owes its specific name, ternata. 

 But, if handsome at all times, it is specially so in 

 May and June and to a lesser degree again in the 

 autumn when it is covered with particularly lovely 

 clusters of white, scented, star-like blossoms. The 

 parts of these blossoms are all in fives ; there are five 

 sepals which quickly fall away, five white petals, two 

 rings of five stamens in each, whose filaments are 

 flattened so that they stand like a wall round the seed- 

 case. This case is composed of five ovules, which 



form a ball, with a yellowish column rising between 



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