562 THE MOUNTAIN ASH. 



numberless florets. The whole cluster has a most dainty and feathery 

 appearance, which it owes to the long slender cream-coloured stamens, 

 of which every floret bears no less than twenty, and to the white 

 anthers and yellow pollen. The petals are set wide apart, but the 

 effect of raeeedness which this produces in the blossom of the 

 Blackthorn is here avoided, so wide-spreading are the stamens, and so 

 closely are the florets packed together. 



Each floret has a pale green calyx with five yellowish toothed 

 sepals ; between these teeth grow the cup-shaped petals, bent sharply 



back from the base. Opposite every petal 

 are three stamens with long spreading 

 filaments, and opposite each sepal one 

 stamen, with a shorter filament, making 

 twenty stamens in all. The pistil is found in the centre of all. It 

 bears three erect white styles, placed close together, and surmounted 

 by four pale yellow stigmas. At its base the tiny round green 

 germ of the future berry can be distinguished. 



Elaborate as is the construction of each floret, every part being 

 visible to the naked eye, it is yet only a quarter or half an inch 

 in diameter, and but one in a crowded cluster some six inches across, 

 while the tree is thickly covered with such clusters. 



The berries in September make a brave show with their scarlet 

 colouring. The dense clusters of them, which replace the flowers, force 

 the shoot down by their weight. The berries resemble little apples, and are 

 about a quarter of an inch in diameter. They are greedily eaten by birds. 



THE LEAF. 



When the leaf is fully developed it occupies a slightly drooping 



position, with a tendency to become horizontal. It is made up of 



a terminal leaflet, and of seven or eight opposite pairs of 



