Plants -- Identification; Wild flowers -- Great Britain
The Guelder Rose or Water Elder (_Viburnum Opulus_), of the same order,
is a flowering shrub, usually six or eight feet high, moderately common
in moist woods and copses, especially in the South, bearing showy cymes
of white blossoms in June and July. The cymes are flat-topped,
consisting of numerous flowers, the outer of which are much larger,
often nearly an inch in diameter, but without stamens or styles, while
the others are perfect, with five stamens and three sessile styles. The
fruit is a blackish-red, almost globular, slightly-flattened berry,
containing a single seed. The cultivated variety of this shrub, known as
the Snowball Tree, has large, globular cymes of flowers, all of which
are large and barren.
The Great Valerian or All-heal (_Valeriana officinalis_--order
_Valerianaceæ_) is moderately common in moist woods, and is rather
widely distributed. It is an erect plant, from two to four feet high,
flowering from June to August. There seems to be two distinct varieties
of this plant, one with from four to six pairs of leaflets, and the
other with from six to ten pairs, in addition to the terminal leaflet in
each case. The flowers are small, flesh-coloured or nearly white, in
terminal and axillary corymbs. The little inferior ovary is surmounted
by a calyx which is compactly rolled in at first, but which expands into
a spreading, feathery pappus as the fruit ripens. The corolla is
tubular, with five short, equal, spreading lobes. It is not spurred as
in the case of the Red Valerian (p. 302), but the base of the
tube is pouched on one side. This plant is shown on Plate II, Fig.
1.
We have now to note some composite flowers (order _Compositæ_) of wooded
and shaded ground. Of these we will first take the Blunt-leaved or
Succory-leaved Hawk's-beard (_Crepis succisæfolia_ or _C. hieracoides_),
which is moderately common in the woods of North England and Scotland,
but does not occur in the South. It is an erect plant, varying from one
to three feet in height, smooth or slightly hairy, flowering during July
and August. The fruits (achenes) are marked by many fine, longitudinal
ridges, and are surmounted by a dense pappus of soft, white hairs which
are a little longer than the fruits themselves. This flower is
represented in Plate II, Fig. 3.
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