Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



The humble-bees are the Rhododendrons' correct 

 visitors; obviously the flowers are built on lines 

 to admit visitors of size and distinction, and when 

 these enter the glowing cavern of the petals, they first 

 strike upon the stigma knob (if the style projects) and 

 then alight upon the stamen platform. If the knob is 

 in the sticky stage and it can be very sticky then 

 any pollen on the visitor's body is transferred to it ; so, 

 too, the pollen from the stamens adheres to body and 

 legs as the bee clambers about the platform drinking 

 its fill from the honey-pits. The ovary down in the 

 centre contains five chambers filled with minute seeds, 

 which are fertilised by the contents of the pollen grains 

 percolating to them through the long style. 



Then the flower-posies wither, the petals fall away, 

 but the seed-case becomes hard and almost wooden. In 

 late autumn, or perhaps not till early spring, its walls 

 split down five fissures, and the tiny brown seeds 

 escape. In the centre of the five fissures is still the 

 central column round which the seeds were ranged, and 

 probably it is topped with the mummified remains of 

 the style. 



The new leaves of any shoot for the year are 

 rolled up together, all in a sharply pointed bud. As 

 the bud bursts in full summer, each leaflet is seen to be 

 curled backwards and lengthwise into two coils which 

 meet on its midrib. These coils slowly unwrap, and 



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