THE OAK FAMILY. 



363 



patrician beech, and Olympian oak, those noble trees which, in their 

 youth so green and graceful, in their age turn the wilderness into a 

 Palmyra. 



The Amentacese are without exception unisexual, some kinds having 

 the male and female flowers upon the same tree, when they are said to 

 be "monoecious," or "occupants of one house;" others having them 

 upon two different trees, when they are called " dicecious," or 

 "occupants of two houses." The males are clustered in "catkins," 

 that is to say, racemes formed of' a long and slender stalk, with 

 numerous small bracts regularly arranged upon it for the whole length, 

 and with a tuft of stamens under every bract. (Fig. 187.) The 

 females are produced either in catkins of similar form, but smaller, 

 with solitary ovaries beneath the scales instead of stamens ; or they 



Fig. 187. 

 Birch Catkin. 



Fig. 186. 

 Beech . 



Fig. 188. 

 Hornbeam. 



grow two or three together in the interior of buds, the stigmas alone 

 exposed to sight. Occasionally the catkins, instead of being long and 

 slender, are ovate or nearly globular ; and though in general stalked 

 and elegantly pendulous, they are sometimes sessile and nearly upright. 

 Most of the species bloom before the leaves appear, or not much later 

 than the period of the earliest verdure, and very often in cold and 

 angry weather, when the fireside is more inviting than the woodland, 

 though nothing can be more beautiful than the spectacle of a hazle, or 

 poplar, or willow, in the month of dafibdils. From the early period of 

 their blooming, and from the greenish and inconspicuous character of 

 the blossoms, it is a very common belief that these trees axe fiowerless. 



