CATKIN TIME 55 



happened to bring males here in 1758, all or nearly 

 all the Lombardy poplars in this country now are 

 males and bits of the same original male. There 

 are found here very rarely now some female Lom- 

 bardy poplars, perhaps introduced by some other 

 acclimatizer, or possibly cross-bred with one of the 

 other poplars. 



Like the poplars, the willows have catkins of 

 only one sex on one tree. It is they that give us 

 the ' palm,' best loved of all catkins. They bear 

 not hanging catkins, but, in token that they are 

 something better than wind-lovers or anemophilous 

 trees, catkins upright like flowers. We like them 

 so well, at any rate the male blossoms, because 

 after their silver stage they hang out golden 

 stamens, evidently meant to be seen, and because 

 they are fragrant with honey for the attraction 

 of bees. Their pollen is of another kind than that 

 of the alders, because they drive another trade. 

 Instead of a dry dust that will cling to nothing 

 but the sticky stigmas, the pollen of the willow is 

 soft and mellow. It smudges the face of our little 

 daughter with gold when she smells the * pussy- 

 willow,' and so it smudges the bees that, unlike the 

 little daughter, have noses also for the female 

 blossoms on another tree, as honeyed as these 

 though they are but green. 



We can smell the ' palm ' trees far through the 

 wood. It is like hot wax or a honeycomb that 

 gives up all its odours at once and in concentrated 

 form. If even the human nose responds to it at 



