CONIFERS 



137 



stigmas. The fruit is the well-known brown hazel 

 nut (or the Spanish nut of the shops), and is 

 surrounded, not by a cup, like the acorn, but by 

 a green husk, formed of enlarged bracts, which 

 turns brown when it withers. 



We often see nuts with a hole in, and on 

 breaking them, find inside a white maggot, some 

 black dust, and more or less of a partly devoured 

 nut. The insect is the grub of the Nut Weevil 

 {Balaninus nucum), a small black beetle, about 

 a quarter of an inch long, with a long pointed 

 snout and red legs. 



The Hornbeam {Carpinus betulus), resembles 

 the Hazel-nut, but grows to a larger size ; both the 

 male and female flowers are pendent, and the nuts 

 are small and angular, and placed at the base of 

 long leafy bracts, hanging in small clusters. 



Sub-class V. Gymnospermeae 

 This sub-class only includes the 

 Order LXXXIX. Coniferce (3 genera) 

 To this the Pines and Firs belong. They are 

 evergreen trees, with needle-like leaves and resinous 



sap ; and the flowers have neither calyx, corolla, 

 nor perianth, the flowers either hanging in catkins, 

 or placed singly at the end of a twig. The fruit 

 is either a cone, in which the seeds are clustered 

 round an axis among scaly bracts ; or else is a 

 berry. 



Yew Tree — Taxus baccata 

 (Plate XCI) 



The Yew grows as a close shrub or hedge, or 

 as a detached tree. The leaves are dark green 

 above and pale green below. It is an extremely 

 poisonous plant, and the clippings are often fatal 

 to cattle. It bears a bright red berry, the pulp of 

 which is harmless, though insipid ; it is the only 

 part of the plant which is not poisonous, for even 

 the seed which it contains is so. 



Yew-berries are ripe in autumn, and, like Ivy- 

 blossom, are very attractive to moths in the even- 

 ing, and many rare species have been found 

 feeding on them. 



The Juniper (Juniperus communis) is a thick 

 branching bush or shrub, growing on dry hills, 



