Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



shoots the stalkless leaves, identical in shape and size, 

 are arranged one close behind the other, in four neat 

 lines. Really they are in pairs, each pair at right 

 angles to the pair above and below it, but the mathe- 

 matical exactitude of the spacing between, the mathe- 

 matical regularity of shape and size, make the ground 

 plan of a shoot a perfect cross with equal and equi- 

 distant arms. 



This formality in the foliage is a striking feature of 

 the genus as a whole. When a number of species are 

 set side by side, as at Kew, it is the characteristic that 

 impresses one most. For instance, in V. buxifolia 

 there are the four lines of equal-sized leaves, only the 

 leaves are much smaller ovals say half an inch long 

 than those of the V. Traversii, which are more than 

 double that size. In V. angustifolia the leaves are 

 comparatively long two to three inches and very 

 narrow indeed ; in V. anomala they are smaller almost 

 than those of V. buxifolia, but always they form these 

 four formal tiers. In the Willow-leaved Veronica, how- 

 ever, they are more graceful and delicate, and their ten- 

 dency to droop renders the stiffness of their arrangement 

 less obvious. But in V. cupressoides we get a singular 

 case of mimicry, for no one who saw it for the first 

 time in foliage alone would dream for one moment 

 that it was a Veronica, or indeed anything but a 



cypress, for the leaves have become small scales, closely 



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