Beautiful Flowering Shrubs 



in its zenith of beauty. Its little white flowers are 

 arranged 150 maybe together in flat clusters at the 

 end of the branches, the creamy petals of the fully opened 

 flowers being in striking contrast to the ruby red of the 

 unopened buds and the crimson of the stalks. Each 

 flower has a tiny five-lobed calyx of ruddy sepals, and 

 five creamy-white petals that unite into a little tube at 

 their base, the ruddiness of their backs so noticeable 

 in the bud stage completely disappearing as they develop 

 and expand. There are five creamy stamens on long 

 stalks and a little white seed-case surmounted by a short 

 thick column tipped by a three-lobed stigma. Round 

 the top of the ovary is a honey-gland, and this, together 

 with the faint odour of almonds that clings about the 

 clusters, encourages the visits of short-tongued bees and 

 flies. These, crawling over the closely set clusters, bring 

 about cross-fertilisation between the flowers of the same 

 cluster, with an occasional cross between flowers of 

 adjacent clusters and adjacent shrubs. 



The dark blue berries which in June follow the 

 flowers are of no edible or medicinal value, as Parkinson 

 (1656) said in his "Earthly Paradise": "The wilde Bay 

 hath no property allotted unto it in Physick, but that 

 it is not to be endured the berries being chewed declare 

 it to be so violent, hot and choking/' The starlings, 

 however, eat them in considerable quantities. 



Even when the shrub is out of flower, the thick 



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