PLUM FAMILY 



tipped," and appear so profusely as to transform the 

 branch into a flowery sceptre. Stamens are few, 

 sometimes a perfect one can be found, but usually a 

 few filaments do duty for all. Under a glass the pistil 

 will be seen to have become leaf-like. The leaves are 

 a quarter grown before the petals fall. 



This beautiful creature comes into the spring-time 

 with charming grace ; the whole plant is a mass of 

 pinkish bloom ; its surpassing loveliness continues for 

 but one short week ; then scattering its petals to the 

 ground it passes from recollection until another spring 

 calls it to its short-lived service. " Beauty is its own 

 excuse for being." 



In its flowering period the little bush is a late com- 

 panion or an immediate follower of the forsythias; it 

 blooms with the magnolias and the red-buds ; before its 

 roses have faded the lilacs are in bloom, and the Spirea 

 prunifolia is out; often this last overlaps the other so 

 that one sees two sets of flower buttons side by side. 

 Two varieties of the species are in cultivation, one 

 bearing pinkish flowers, and the other white. 



116 



