55 



THE POPLAR AND THE WILLOW. 



INNUMERABLE phenomena in nature testify to its harmony with man 

 and all that pertains to him. Every circumstance of his animal life, 

 from the cradle to the edge of the grave, is in one way or another 

 mirrored and duplicated ; no matter of surprise is it, then, that at every 

 turn we are met by examples of close relationships among Trees such as 

 are calculated to remind us of the ties which constitute families among 

 ourselves. One of the special occupations of the botanist is to deter- 

 mine the affinities that plants bear to one another ; to notice, that is to 

 say, the resemblances which subsist among them, and to bring together, 

 as far as pen and paper, and the hortus siccus and the Botanic Garden 

 will allow, those which most nearly resemble in essentials. This is the 

 "delightful task" for which, after rearing "the tender shoot," he finds 

 a long life-time give opportunity for only a very partial fulfilment. It 

 is pure and enduring enjoyment nevertheless, since every day and hour 

 he learns more and more the significance of that beautiful word Unity. 



By reason of these concordances and agreements it is well that in our 

 present survey the Poplar- tree and the Willow should be taken together. 

 Members of a great family distinguished from all others by producing 

 a portion, if not the whole, of their flowers, in those pretty pendulous 

 clusters called " catkins," these two are still isolated and characterised 

 by a peculiarity of their own. While all other species of " Amentiferse" 

 have their stamens and pistils produced from different buds upon the 

 same tree, these two races, the poplars and the willows, have their two 

 kinds of flowers not only developed from different buds, but the two 

 sets of buds are confined to different trees ! In a word, to adopt the 

 technical language of the schools, poplars and willows are " dioecious," 

 while all other trees that bear catkins, or those at least which belong 

 to the Amentiferae, are " monoecious." These terms were contrived by 

 Linnaeus in that happy spirit of poetry which gives force and feeling 

 to all true science, the idea conveyed in them being that trees are 

 houses, the inhabitants of which, like human beings, are male and 



