282 Plants and their Ways in South Africa 



in aments or catkins. The pistillate flowers form catkins as in 

 Willow and Poplar, or they may occur in few-flowered heads. 

 In the Oak the head is reduced to one flower. The fruit of 

 Salicaceae is a many-seeded capsule, in the other orders it is 

 a nut. The flowers are dioecious or monoecious. They are 

 out in good season in the early spring, and are swinging their 

 gold-and-silver tassels before the leaves get large enough to be 

 in the way of the wind-scattered pollen. 



Fig. 255. — A, Catkin or amentum of the Oak. I. Flower of Oak. II. 

 Female flowers. (Both x 3.) (From Edmonds and Marloth's "Elementary 

 Botany for South Africa ". ) 



The flowers of Willows, Poplars, and Myrica (the Wax Bush) are sub- 

 tended by a single bract. The staminate flowers of the Oak have a 

 greenish 6-parted perianth. The few genera in each order, the simple 

 flowers and fossil forms, indicate that these orders represent very old 

 families of flowering plants. 



Salicaceae. — Flowers dioecious. Capsules containing 

 many minute seeds. The order contains two genera, Populus 



