46 FAMILIAR TREES 



some extent crowded so as to form tufts at the ends 

 of the branches, and from their "axils," i.e. the 

 angles where they are given off from the stem, 

 spring the long pendulous catkins of flowers. In 

 a favourable autumn the leaves turn to a clear 

 lemon-yellow, stained with orange and brown 

 where damp decomposes the, as yet, perfect texture. 

 Some of the leaves seem, however, first to clear 

 their green, light green patches occurring at the 

 base of " the sere, the yellow leaf," and the whole 

 tree gaining a varied and revivified aspect, the 

 forlorn hope of life before the winter death. 



Flowers of both kinds are borne on every tree. 

 The slender yellowish catkins are five or six inches 

 long, hanging from the axils of the young leaves 

 in May. Each catkin bears a series of small scale- 

 like "bracts," some little distance apart, and in 

 the axil of each of these scales there are either 

 seven staminate or three pistillate flowers. Each 

 kind of flower is surrounded by a calyx of six 

 minute greenish leaves, which in the female 

 blossoms form a tube enclosing and adhering to 

 the ovary. There are from eight to twenty stamens 

 in each male flower, which discharge an enormous 

 quantity of pollen, like a cloud of sulphur. So 

 abundant is this pollen that, if it has not con- 

 tributed, as has that of the Pine, to our tradi- 

 tionary folk-lore concerning rains of sulphur, it will 

 certainly cover the water of any neighbouring pond 

 Avith its film of yellow dust, which is perhaps suf- 

 ficient reason for not planting the tree on the 

 margin of any small piece of ornamental water. At 



