CATKINS 



severely alone. To the catkins themselves the 

 visit of the bee is generally a sheer loss, for the 

 bee does not visit the female catkins and convey 

 the fertihsing pollen to their stigmas, but, instead, 

 carries quantities of the pollen away for its own 

 purposes. Besides that, the bee wastes much ot 

 the pollen by so clumsily shaking it from, the cat- 

 kins, causing it to be distributed where it will 

 effect no useful purpose. The bee is in the wrong 

 place ; the catkins have changed their love, they 

 no longer woo insects, but the wind. 



There is the secret of the whole matter. Rich 

 nectar, coloured petals, sweet perfumes, convenient 

 landing stages, with sign-posts such as rows of 

 hairs, coloured lines and spots all converging to 

 the nectar}^ of the flowers, are all absent in the 

 flowers of the catkins, because the wind does not 

 require these inducements. Instead of them we 

 have rows of horizontal scales with hollow cavities 

 in their backs all arranged one above the other, 

 and beneath them stamens that are continually 

 ripening and shedding their pollen, which falls from 

 them into the hollowed backs of the scales immedi- 

 ately below them, accumulating there into little 

 heaps. 



In this wa}^ when the atmosphere is still, the 

 catkin becomes, as it were, a row of little shelves 

 all loaded up with pollen. Then comes a gentle 

 puff of wind that vibrates the catkin, and from its 

 scales arise little clouds of dust. Then a larger 

 gust shakes the branches and quite a shower of the 

 golden dust rains down from the numerous catkins, 



51 



