50 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 



The swamp or pussy-willow often blossoms in 

 later March, braving high winds and leaden skies. 



The red maple and the poplar bloom at about 

 the same time, and the sugar-maple a little later. 

 By later April, in ordinary seasons, the young 

 seeds of the poplar are formed, and dangle from 

 the branches in long, green clusters, so many and 

 so dense that they impart their color to the tree. 

 The elms, too, finish flowering betimes, and 

 cover themselves with young seed-pods, which hang 

 in bunches from the boughs and twigs 

 (Fig. 6). They are thin and flat and 

 of a vivid, tender green, and will be 

 mistaken by nine observers out of ten 

 for expanding leaves. The real leaves 

 meantime are finishing out their win- 



FIG. 6. Fruit 

 of the elm. ter ' s nap i ns ide the leaf-buds, which 



(From the Vege- 

 table World.) jM1 ,, ii 1 



are still very small and show scarcely 

 a tinge of green. 



In the country west of the Alleghanies the 

 silver poplar or "abele" (Populus Alba) is one of 

 the most familiar trees and one of the first to 

 respond to the wooing of the south wind and the 

 sun. Its flower-buds are covered with shining 

 brown scales, which split apart, in latter March or 

 early April, and show rifts of gleaming gray. 



