78 FAMILIAR TREES 



directions," a truth expressed by Geo&oy St. Hilaire 

 and Goethe as the law of balancement of growth : " in 

 order to spend on one side," says Goethe, " Nature is 

 forced to economise on the other." Accordingly, as in 

 the Hydrangea of our gardens, or the blue outer 

 florets in the Cornflower, these large outer flowers 

 in the Wild Guelder-rose are neuter, having, that 

 is, neither stamens nor carpels, and are able tO' 

 throw so muc^i the more energy into the production 

 of their corollas. 



It is here that the cultivated variety, to which the 

 name Guelder-rose properly belongs, difiers from its 

 wild original, all its flowers, and not only the. outer- 

 ones, being neuter. The variety is known, therefore, 

 technically as ster'ilis and produces no fruit, being, of 

 course, only propagated by cuttings or grafts. The 

 crowding of its large corollas converts the inflorescence 

 into a perfect ball, to which it owes its common name 

 of Snowball-tree, with its equivalents in French, Boule 

 de Neige and Pellotte de Neige, and in German, Schnee- 

 balle, together with the Devonshire May Tosty and 

 Tisty-tosty and the now somewhat generally familiar 

 Whitsuntide Bosses. As in the wild tree honey and 

 perfume are confined to the central fertile flowers, 

 this garden form is scentless, a fact to which Cowper 

 alludes in "The Task'' when, describing the beauties of 

 this gay season, with Lilac and Jasmine, he writes of 



" The scentless and the scented rose ; this red, 

 And of an humbler growth, the other tall. 

 And throwing up into the darkest gloom 

 Of neighbouring cypress, or more sable yew. 

 Her silver globes, light as the foamy surf 

 That the wind severs from the broken wave." 



