620 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



flowers, each with a purple spot at the 

 base, the stamens forming a sort of 

 green daisy center. In the fall both 

 its leaves and its fruit are beautiful, 

 the berries being brilliant scarlet in 

 star-shaped clusters, and the leaves 

 deep reds and purples. Its close cousin, 

 the green osier or blue dogwood, also 

 wants looking up in May, because, 

 while its Httle yellowish-white racemes 

 of flowerets do not come out until June, 

 the leaves in Mav are highly ornamental. 



The White Oak. 



the pale white and pink leaves of the white oak 

 be seen early in may. 



being a pale white with purple spots. 

 Look for it along stream banks and 

 forest swamp borders. 



And, early in May, do not fail to note 

 the young leaves of the oaks, particu- 

 larly the pale white-and-pink leaves of 

 the white oak, truly as beautiful as any 

 flower. At the same time examine the 

 sterile and fertile flowers of all the oaks. 

 The sterile ones are long, knotty, 

 yellow-green pendants, reddish in the 

 case of the black and scrub oaks. 



They are much in evidence during that 

 period when the leaves as yet are but 

 scraggly ragged bunches of vegetation, 

 iust opening out from the winter buds. 

 Most interesting of all are the future 

 acorns, the fertile flowers, in general, 

 for all the oaks, little scaly cups, with 

 two or more reddish, hornshaped petals 

 peeping out. Down in the center of 

 these is the ovary, which will grow to an 

 acorn when fertilized by the pollen 

 from the sterile catkins growing in the 

 same tree, and the scaly cup 

 later becomes the cup of the 

 acorn. Nature is taking no 

 chances with such an impor- 

 tant tree as the oak, and any 

 one of them can reproduce 

 itself without any other indi- 

 vidual of the species growing 

 near it. Some of the acorns 

 will not mature until the 

 second season after setting, 

 notably those of the white, 

 black, pin, scrub and scarlet 

 oaks; while the red, chestnut, 

 swamp, white, and overcup 

 oaks mature their acorns the 

 first year. In all the species 

 the acorns come down early 

 enough in September to sprout 

 a good many of them, while 

 the rest hold over on the 

 ground through the winter 

 if not eaten and start early in 

 the following spring. The 

 bountiful crop of acorns 

 formed one of the principal 

 sources of flour for the eastern 

 Indians; such acorns as those 

 of the white oak requiring only 

 boiling and leaching to equal 

 the chestnut in flavor, and 



ARE TO 



those with more tannin in 

 them, such as the red, required 

 drying, pulverizing and leaching through 

 thin buckskin until the water running 

 out no longer held a yellowish tinge. 

 The flour was mixed in a batter, and 

 paper bread made of it by spreading 

 on a thin stone over the flre, the result 

 being a crisp crust, like modern break- 

 fast foods. 



Ivlost delicate and beautiful of the 

 May tree flowers are those of the apple 

 family. Look in some moist dell, 

 tinkling with the fall of a tin\' brook, for 



