I02 THE FRUITS OF THE COUNTRY-SIDE 



though distinct, are found on the same plant, an arrange- 

 ment technically termed monoecious. To this latter class 

 the oak belongs. The stamen-bearing flowers are found 

 in slender pendulous catkins, from two or three inches 

 long, each individual flower in the group consisting of 

 some six to twelve stamens, surrounded at their bases by 

 a ring of very small scales, while the pistillate flowers are 

 erect and solitary, surrounded by a ring or cup of con- 

 spicuous scales or bracts. This ring presently develops 

 and coheres, hardening into the cup of the acorn. The 

 flowers appear in April or May, simultaneously with the 

 bursting leaf-buds. 



The fruit of the oak, the well-known acorn, is com- 

 posed of two very distinct features, the central nut, and 

 the ring of encircling bracts, or cup, at its base. It is 

 ripe in October. When mature the supply of moisture 

 is withheld, the nut shrinks a little in consequence, and 

 becomes held loosely in its cup, and so a gust of wind 

 then suffices to throw it to the ground. 



When a plant has matured its seed, Nature has next 

 to prepare for its dispersion ; nourishment, as we see, is 

 withdrawn, and the stems and seed-chambers become dry 

 and fragile ; the Autumn gales then sweep down alike on 

 forest or on flower-bed, and the gusts scatter far and wide 

 the ripened seeds. In this way the acorn is thrown from 

 its cup as a ball is tossed from one's hand. Nature, too, 

 has many assistant gardeners : the schoolboy that gathers a 

 pocketful of acorns, and presently tires of them, drops them, 

 or throws them aimlessly away ; the squirrels and other 

 woodland creatures that hoard, and bury, and sometimes 

 forget the position of their larder ; the forest ponies or 



