206 SUMMER 



catkins have a mixed character, between the type of wind- 

 mated flowers like those of the poplar and hazel, and insect- 

 fertilised blossoms like the lime's. Chestnuts have also a third 

 type of catkin which is bisexual, and in all this they offer 

 a strong suggestion of a transition between the broadcast 

 method of distribution by the wind and the more precise 

 intervention of bees and flies. The mass of scent and colour 

 in the boughs is provided by the long ropes of the male 

 catkins, which towards the end of the month wither and 

 strew so thickly the shadowed ground below. But if we 

 look more closely we see less numerous and more naked stems 

 bearing little green burrs near their base, and more stunted 

 downy tufts above. The tufts are the bisexual catkins, and 

 their function is now almost obsolete. They do not produce 

 nuts, and in the male purpose of fertilisation they are almost 

 superseded. The burrs are the female flowers, which will 

 turn, when fertilised, into the prickly shells of the ripe 

 October chestnuts ; they have the prickliness already out- 

 lined, even at this early day and in their infant stages. As 

 these burrs swell in late July and August, the tree dis- 

 encumbers itself of the now useless catkins. The quickly 

 falling ropes are in time to be swept into drifts on the path 

 by the rains of the usual wet week in early August. In the 

 mixed heaps of gravel and litter swept up by the gardener 

 week by week, dead chestnut catkins are now most numer- 

 ous, as dead ilex leaves were a few weeks before, in June. 

 The strings of bisexual catkins surmounting the little burry 

 nuts wither and shrink to a mere tag, but do not always fall. 

 They are sometimes found still clinging to the full-grown 

 chestnut when it falls or is gathered in October. 



The stems of chestnut catkins stand erect, and thus add 

 to the gay and summery appearance of a tree in rich flower 

 in July. Lime-flowers are pendulous, and the glow of pale 



