84 ROUND THE YEAR 



Willow trees, as I have said, are wholly male or 

 wholly female, completely unisexual ; so are Poplars. 

 Find a male Willow of the Common Sallow kind, 

 and watch its flowers open from day to day. The 

 scales of the bud part, and a mass 

 of silvery hairs shows itself, which 

 lengthens, turns yellow, and at 

 length seems to be made up of 

 stamens and pollen. If you break 

 such a catkin across, you will find 

 it made up of a vast multitude of 

 silky bracts, each of which bears 

 two stamens. There is a minute 

 gland to each bract, which exudes 

 sweet juice, and helps us to under- 

 stand why the Sallow is attractive 

 to Insects. 



The female flowers are borne 

 many together on spikes (we can- 

 not call them cones, though they 

 answer to the cones of Alder, 

 Birch and Hazel). Each flower is 

 ensheathed by a bract, and con- 

 tains a seed vessel or ovary 

 mounted on a stalk, and ending 

 above in a forked style. The 

 FIG. 27 .-Cone of pistillate ovary contains many seeds. 



flowers of Willow. J J 



In June, look out for the ripe 



pods of the female Willow. The halves of the ovary 

 separate at the top, and gradually curl themselves in 

 opposite directions, exposing to view a multitude of 

 silky seeds. I have found it very amusing to pull 



