J04 THE POPLAR AND THE WILLOW. 



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 determine 

 the affinities which 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 performance. It is pure and enduring en- 

 joyment 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 the " Amentiferae " 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 



