THE HORNBEAM 21 



tree, especially if pollarded, until the following 

 spring. 



About a month after the unfolding of the leaf- 

 buds the catkins make their appearance. The 

 staminate or male catkins are produced in the 

 axils of the leaves of the previous year i.e. in 

 the angles between these leaves and the stem 

 the female or fruit-bearing ones terminating the 

 young shoot. Both kinds of catkin are pendulous, 

 and vary in length from one inch to two inches 

 each ; but after fertilisation the fruit-bearing axes 

 elongate considerably. 



The Hornbeam agrees with the Hazel in having 

 no perianth round its male flowers, this being one 

 of the characters by which they are separated, 

 under the name Coryla'cece, from the Oaks, 

 Beeches, and Chestnuts, or Querci'new. The male 

 catkin consists of numerous overlapping, pale- 

 coloured scales, or bracts, beneath each of which 

 the minute observer will find a group of twelve 

 or more stamens, each of them forked, and bear- 

 ing two anthers ending in a tuft of hair. These 

 male spikelets, as is usually the case with similar 

 organs, fall off entire as soon as they have dis- 

 charged their function i.e. as soon as they have 

 liberated the pollen. 



The female catkin well illustrates the structure, 

 at once simple and elaborate, of the flower-buds 

 of most of our trees. In the axil of each bract of 

 some trees there is one central flower, on either 

 side of which are two smaller bracts, or " brac- 

 teoles," and in tho axils of each of these there is 



