THE WIND AS CARRIER. i^i 



self by shaking a hazel branch in the flowering 

 season, when you will find yourself covered by a 

 perfect shower of pollen. 



In hazel (Fig. 29) the male and female flowers 

 grow on the same tree, but are most different to 

 look at. You would hardly take them for cor- 

 responding parts of the same species. The male 

 flowers are grouped in long sausage-shaped cat- 

 kins, each blossom covered with a tiny brown 

 scale, and all arranged like tiles on a roof against 

 the cold of winter. There are about eight sta- 

 mens to each blossom, with little trace of a calyx 



FIG. 29 Flowers of the hazel. I, a single male flower, removed 

 from a catkin ; II, a pair of female flowers ; III, a female 

 catkin. 



or corolla. But the females are grouped in funny 

 little buds, like crimson tufts, well protected by 

 scales; they consist of the future hazel-nut, with 

 a red style and feathery stigma projecting above 

 to catch the pollen. Here the flowers are very 

 little like the regular types with which we are 

 familiar; yet intermediate cases help to bridge 

 over the gap for us. 



For example, in the alder we get a type which 

 seems to stand half-way between the nettle and 

 the hazel (so far, I mean, as the arrangement of 

 the flower is concerned, for otherwise the nettle 



