102 FAMILIAR TREES 



to the setting of the seed, since the stigmas of the 

 flowers become sticky, i.e. reach their maturity, before 

 the stamens are ready to shed their pollen ; so that no 

 one flower can be fertilised, by its own pollen. Other 

 plants with numerous small flowers render them 

 conspicuous in different ways, the Guelder-rose, for 

 instance, by the great enlargement of the corollas 

 of the outer neuter florets; but the Mountain Ash, 

 like the Elder, depends entirely upon the broad 

 expanse of the whole cluster. 



It is, however, undoubtedly after these blossoms 

 have fallen in June or July, when the little Hawthorn- 

 like fruits or miniature apples have, in August and 

 September, turned tism unnoticed greenness to a 

 remarkable shade of scarlet, that the graces of the 

 Rowan force themselves upon our notice. Then, as 

 Wordsworth says — 



"The Mountain Ash 

 No eye can overlook, when, 'mid a grove 

 Of yet unfaded trees, she lifts her head, 

 Deok'd with autumnal berries that outshine 

 Spring's richest blossoms." 



The poet here notices the fact — an important one 

 from the point of view of picturesque effects in form 

 and colour — that the berries of the Mountain Ash 

 turn colour, whUst most of our forest trees stiU retain 

 their foliage in its summer green. Their hue is not 

 the blood-red of the Guelder-rose, nor the crimson 

 often seen in the haws of the Whitethorn, but a less 

 common tint containing a considerable admixture 

 of yellow, a scarlet sometimes matched in the hips of 

 the Rose. If permitted to do so, the berries wUl stay 



