228 FLOWERS OF THE ROADSIDES AND HEDGES 



lace-like in outline. The bole is stout and erect, with stout buttresses 

 in old trees. The buds are dull brown, with many scales, each being 

 really a pair of stipules, the lowest pair not lengthening in spring, 

 There are several enclosing the leaf-bud within. The outermost scales 

 serve to protect the inner from cold in winter. A pair of scales protects 

 the leaves, and they are united to the base of the stem each side of the 

 leaf-stalk. The scales fall at length. The leaf is folded up in bud upon 

 the midrib. It is closed up in a fan-like manner on the lateral veins. 



The flowers are not borne in catkins as in the other trees which 

 belong to the Amentiferse, but are in tufted clusters. The perianth is 

 cup-like, 4-5-fid, the lobes fringed with hairs, and contains five or four 

 stamens with purple anthers, and a central pistil. There are two 

 chambers in the ovary, but only one develops, and that rarely matures. 

 The flower-stalk is short. The flowers appear before the leaves. 

 They are vinous-red in colour. The fruit is an inversely ovate, or 

 elliptic -oblong samara, notched, with the seed above the centre and 

 near the notch. There is a wing all round the seed except at the 

 notched apex, the lobes of the notch being incurved. The samara is 

 greenish-brown or brown. 



The Common Elm flowers in March, and is a deciduous tree. 



Most trees are pollinated by the wind, and it is supposed that this 

 mode of pollination is the most primitive. However this may be, the 

 trees usually flower before the leaves are in bud, and have the parts 

 of the flower especially modified to this end. 



The Elm has usually hermaphrodite or complete flowers, but may 

 be sometimes monoecious. The perianth is a bell-shaped structure with 

 a variable number of teeth, or segments, and tubular below. It is hairy 

 on the lower part, and the teeth are sparingly glandular. The pistil lies 

 in the centre surmounted by a bifid stigma, with papillae on the inner 

 face and pectinate glandular structures or hairs. There are as many 

 stamens as perianth-lobes. The stigma is usually said to ripen before 

 the anthers, as is usually the case in wind-pollinated flowers, but some- 

 times the anthers ripen first. There are 2 anther-cells, and they open 

 outwards. Soon after the stigma matures the anther-stalks lengthen, 

 and if the stigma be still receptive, pollen falling on the stigmas, the 

 flower will be self- pollinated. In the ordinary course pollen is blown 

 upwards to another flower on the same tree. When the anthers have 

 withered the style lengthens and the stigma protrudes from the peri- 

 anth, in which it was at first included. In spite of its adaptation to 

 cross-pollination by the wind the Common Elm does not, in England, 

 set perfect seed as a rule. Personally, the writer is inclined to attribute 



