40 FAMILIAR TREES 



be, however, that the French word Obel gave his family 

 name to that eminent botanist Matthias de l'Obel, who 

 was born at Lille and died in 1616 at Highgate, and 

 who is now commemorated by the Lobelia. On one 

 of his title pages he uses this tree as a device with 

 the motto " Candore et spe," referring to the white 

 under surfaces of its leaves, symbolical of candour, 

 and the green of the upper, typifying hope. 



In March and April while some trees bear droop- 

 ing catkins, often four inches long, made up of lobed 

 and fringed scales with clusters of vinous-purple 

 anthers, others have shorter and more erect assem- 

 blages of the less conspicuous female flowers ; and 

 after the pollen is discharged the ground is strewn 

 with the now effete male catkins, whilst the fruit- 

 ing capsules remain to burst and discharge their 

 woolly seeds in autumn. 



The white leaves of this tree as it grows in some 

 marshy wood, when turned upwards by rain-foreboding 

 gusts against a dull sky, give it a cold and melancholy 

 appearance ; but when they glance in the sunshine 

 the airy lightness of its mode of growth gives the 

 tree a most cheering character. Though its suckers 

 render the Abele undesirable in too close proximity 

 to a lawn, it may well find a place in some moist 

 spot, by the water's edge, or at the margin of a park. 



