GORSE BLOSSOMS.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XXVI, Issue 1323, 28 August 1894, Page 3

GORSE BLOSSOMS.

About its second or third jear, the young furze-bush begins to blossom. Apparently, to the unobservant eye of the ordinary townsman, it appears to flower all the year round without any interruption. In reality, however, it does nothing of the sort. And here I will venture to expound to you why it is that gorse is never out of blossom, and kissing accordingly never out of fashion. The fact is, there are in England two distinct species of furze, superficially indistinguishable to the unlearned eye, but quite well marked when once the difference between them has been pointed out to you. The first is the great or winter gorse, with pale yellow flowers. This is a tall and bushy shrub, very woody at the base, and covered all over with soft down or hair, especially on the bark of the larger branches. It begins to blossom in early autumn, struggles on as best it may through the winter season, puts out fresh masses of bloom on every sunny day in December and January, and continues on through spring or early summer. Indeed, one may see it in the depth of winter with hoar-frost coating its bold yellow blossoms. The second is the dwarf or summer gorse—a much smaller plant, less bushy and more creeping; it has fewer hairs and brighter green leaves ; its flowers are smaller, of a deep golden yellow, and it likewise differs in certain technical points about the calyx and bracts which the natural benevolence of my character prevents me from inflicting on unbotanical readers. This smaller species begins to flower in early summer, just about the time when the greater gorse leaves off, and it continues in blossom through July, August, and September, till the greater gorse is ready to start again. The one plant blooms from October till May, the other takes up the running from May till October. Thus it comes about that gorse of one kind or another is never out of blossom.

Careless observers, not distinguishing between these two allied but distinct species, have come to the conclusion that one and the same plant is perpetually in flower. This is the less to be wondered at as the two often grow together over miles of waste land on heaths and commons. But their effect when in flower is really very different —the great gorse has its paly yellow blossoms scattered irregularly in patches on the round top of the bushes ; the dwarf summer gorse, on the other hand, has them arranged in close, upright spikes, very thick and regular. The larger sort makes the effective masses on a big scale in the ' landscape ; the smaller looks daintier 1 and prettier on a very close view, especially when intermixed, as it often is, with ling and Scotch heather. — From “ Defence not Defiance,” in the Cornhill Magazine. 1