THE SPECKLED ALDER 



EVERY plant is a calendar of the year. Through long ages of adaptation it has 

 learned to record the passing season with unerring certainty. The requirements 

 of Nature are relentless: each plant that does not conform to the conditions of 

 its environment is sternly eliminated, as unfit to survive. 



None of our native trees or shrubs has learned this lesson with more certainty or 

 expresses it with more grace than the Alders. Standing beside every water-course, they 

 seem to have absorbed through their multitudinous roots the charm inherent in running 

 water, and they attract our regard as inevitably as do the streams themselves. The Alders 

 as a whole are shrubs rather than trees, but a few species sometimes take on the form and 

 size of a tree. The Speckled Alder however, generally remains a shrub. In summer it may 

 be known by its obovate or oval leaves, with the upper surface soft green and the lower 

 surface paler. The margins are very finely serrate, or more or less doubly serrate, and the 

 apex is rounded or obtusely pointed. In autumn these leaves turn slightly yellow or 

 often rusty brown, with the petioles and veins a deep crimson. 



After the leaves have fallen the young shoots are seen to have their bark of a brown 

 color more or less covered with a whitish bloom, which in the newest growths may be seen 

 to be due to a resinous exudation mingled with a covering of short hairs. The bark of the 

 twigs in general has numerous white spots which probably gave the species its name of 

 Speckled Alder, as the whitish bloom on the bark probably gave it its other name of 

 Hoary Alder. The vase-shaped leaf-buds have the characteristic form of all the Alder 

 leaf-buds, and the buds of the staminate catkins are generally to be found on the ends of 

 the more vigorous twigs. The undeveloped seed-bearing catkins project downward rather 

 than upward, which is one of the characteristic features of this species. 



It is in early spring that the Speckled Alder makes its greatest appeal to one's 

 fancy. The lengthening of the pollen-bearing catkins is the first sign that winter is passing. 

 Even in New England these catkins foretell the coming of spring during bright days in 

 March, and as they hang down in attractive festoons two or three inches long they give 

 the banks of the water-courses an appearance of grace and beauty which is not duplicated 

 during the entire year. The greenish yellow pollen is produced in great abundance and 

 carried by the wind through the branches which bear the much smaller seed-bearing cat- 

 kins. After the pollen is thus scattered the long catkins drop off and the short ones begin 

 their gradual development into the seed-bearing cones which are so conspicuous on the 

 branches at any season. If in winter you break off a twig bearing some of these cones 

 and shake it over a table you will see the small brown seeds scatter over the surface. 



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