n8 PLANTS GROWING IN MOIST SOIL. 



SPIDERWORT. (Plate L VII.) 



Tradescdntia montana. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Spiderwort. Blue, with orange- Scentless. South and -west. May-August, 



yellow anthers. 



Flowers : growing in a loose umbel at the end of the flower-stalks. Calyx : 

 of three sepals. Corolla: of three, rounded, irregular petals ; the odd one very 

 small. Stamens: six; the filaments prettily bearded; anthers conspicuous. 

 Pistil: one. Leaves: opposite; lanceolate to linear ; clasping. Stem: erect; 

 fleshy; mucilaginous. 



The spiderwort is a fair blue flower, and its golden anthers 

 have such a lively expression that we are constantly expect- 

 ing them to say something funny to us ; but they never do. 

 Perhaps they have not the time, as like the day flower they live 

 but for a single day. 



Just before the recurved buds in the umbels make up their 

 minds to bloom, they erect themselves and- remain in that posi- 

 tion until their petals have faded, when they bend down again 

 and the seeds mature. Under a microscope the jointed hairs 

 of the stamens and the miraculously attached anthers reveal a 

 world of unexpected and interesting beauty. 



CRANBERRY TREE. WILD GUELDER-ROSE. 



(Plate C XXXV I, page 259.) 

 Viburnum 6pulus. 



FAMILY COLOUR ODOUR RANGE TIME OF BLOOM 



Honeysuckle. White. Scentless. Neiv England westward. Spring. 



Flcnvers : fertile flowers, with parts arranged in fives and clustered in a cyme ; 

 neutral flowers with large flat corollas that grow in a border about the others. 

 Friiit: juicy, acid ; often used as a substitute for cranberries. Leaves : 

 three to five lobed ; pointed ; netted-veined ; toothed; with two glands at the 

 summit of the petiole. A shrub with greyish, smooth bark. 



The primary law of the viburnum household is to keep things 

 separate. The neutral flowers which are arranged about the 

 fertile ones of the centre are for the purpose of attracting the 

 bee's eye. To look pretty and to be seen is their only care in 

 life. It seems as though the unattractive little fertile flowers 

 had begged them to play this role for them, as they themselves 

 are busy with the weight of reproducing their species upon 



