5 8 FAMILIAR TREES 



The female flowers are grouped in little egg- 

 sliaped, bud-like tufts, sessile on the branch, con- 

 sisting of several overlapping green bracts, each of 

 which bears two flowers on its inner face, the 

 crimson stigmas forming a tassel at the top of 

 the cluster. The flower itself is only a two- 

 chambered ovary, surrounded by a velvety cup-like 

 "bracteole" (which afterwards grows into the large 

 leafy husk or "cupule" of the nut), and is sur- 

 mounted by a short style and two of the long, 

 crimson, tongue-like stigmas. 



Concerning the nut, the Rev. H. N. Ellacombe 



writes : 



" There is a peculiarity in the growth of the nut that is worth 

 the notice of the botanical student. The male blossoms or catkins 

 (ulso anciently called ' agglettes ' or ' blowinges ') are mostly pro- 

 duced at the ends of the year's shoots, while the pretty little 

 crimson female blossoms are produced close to the branch ; they are 

 completely sessile or unstalked. Now, in most fruit trees, when a 

 flower is fertilised the fruit is produced exactly in the same place, 

 with respect to the main tree, that the flower occupied ; a peach or 

 apricot, for instance, rests upon the branch which bore the flower. 

 But in the nut a different arrangement prevails. As soon as the 

 flower is fertilised it starts away from the parent branch ; a fresh 

 branch is produced, hearing leaves and the nut or nuts at the 

 end, so that the nut is produced several inches away from the 

 spot on which the flower originally was. I know of no other 

 tree that produces its fruit in this way, nor do I know what 

 special benefit to the plant arises from this arrangement." 



Towards the solution of this problem it may be 

 suggested that as it produces no petals the shrub 

 has energy to form abundant pollen, some of which 

 will certainly be wind-wafted on to the spreading 

 stigmas if there are no leaves in the way. Hence 



