The Shrubby Veronicas 



moisture. Down at the bottom is a green seed-case, and 

 up through the tube rises a long column, but not so long 

 as the stamens. In these drooping clusters the flowers 

 naturally tend to hang inclined at an angle, and so densely 

 are they clustered that the many visiting insects can each 

 rest on one while probing the secret recesses of the other. 

 Self-fertilisation is impossible with such widely diverging 

 stamens, and cross-fertilisation is the rule. Bees, in par- 

 ticular, love the Veronica blooms, and night-flying insects 

 visit them too ; for, as evening falls, and the contour of 

 the dark green foliage sinks into the background of the 

 night, then the moonlight-coloured spikes seem to gleam 

 out with a pale luminousness that marks them as fit 

 places of call for the soft-flying denizens of the dusk. 

 In a Cambridgeshire garden, a Willow-leaved Veronica, 

 sheltered by a greenhouse wall, grew into a really mag- 

 nificent shrub, whose graceful slender foliage was in late 

 June almost veiled by hundreds of pale drooping tails 

 of flowers. 



With the close of blossoming the petals fall, carrying 

 the stamen pair with them, and in place of each flower a 

 little brown two-celled capsule containing many seeds 

 appears. 



In the hybrid, V. Andersonii, there are long narrow 

 spikes of 'purple flowers, which in the variegated variety 

 make a specially gay show among the yellows and greens 



of the foliage. 



219 



