Catkins 91 



work of the male flowers is over, and the whole catkin 

 gradually dries up, and then falls to the ground. The 

 female catkins last until the seed has ripened. 



Besides the male or female flowers you will often 

 find on a catkin a number of small scale-like leaves in 

 the axils of which grow the flowers, exactly as a leaf 

 bud grows in the axil of a leaf. Leaves that bear this 

 relation to flowers are known as bracts, and their 

 presence on a catkin sometimes makes it much harder 

 to see where one flower leaves off and the next one 



Fig. 46. Birch, (a) Male flower. (6) Female flowers (three). 



begins. To show you what I mean we will look together 

 at the catkins of the hornbeam. In this tree the male 

 and female catkins are found together on the same 

 twigs. Each flower of the former includes a greenish 

 bract, somewhat curved over the bunch of forked 

 stamens which grow upon it (Fig. 45 a). The female 

 catkins bear a number of long green bracts under each 

 of which are two flowers. When these are separated 

 they are not unlike the hazel flowers. Each one con- 

 sists of a pistil with two long red ends growing from a 



