You will have no difficulty in recognising this plant. It has masses of
grey-green flowers, and big bunches of feathery tufts; and you will find
it growing in summer right over the tops of the hedges.
There are some unusual things about this flower. It has really no
petals. There are four pretty sepals of a grey-green colour, which are
covered with soft white woolly down. These woolly sepals soon fall off,
and within you find a big bunch of whitish green stamens. When the seeds
which grow in the centre of the bunch of stamens begin to ripen, they
each send out a long feathery tail. These tails wave in the air, and
look like tufts of down clinging to the hedges.
The leaves are dark green above and paler green below. They grow
opposite each other on the stem. Sometimes their edges are quite smooth,
and sometimes they are cut like the teeth of a big saw.
The stem of the Traveller's Joy is very tough and woody. It is easily
bent, and would not be able to rise from the ground were it not that
there are little curly green threads called tendrils below the small
leaves. These tendrils twist themselves round the stems of the hedges,
and with this support the plant can climb as high as the top of the
hedge.