CATKINS AXD ALMOND-BLOSSOM. 39 



With the crocuses and almonds the case is somewhat 

 different, yet alike in ultimate principle. These are 

 insect-fertilized flowers, and by flowering so early they 

 catch the bees in the beginning of spring. For, on the 

 one hand, the bees must have a succession of blossoms 

 all the year round (except in midwinter), or they could 

 never get on at all ; and the very existence of insect-fer- 

 tilized flowers as a body depends upon a tacit agreement 

 between them so to speak not to interfere with one 

 another, but to keep a continual supply for the bees and 

 butterflies from month to month ; while, on the other 

 hand, the flowers themselves need each a time when they 

 can depend upon receiving their fair share in the atten- 

 tions of the insects or else they might never set their 

 seeds at all. Some few of these early blossoms, like 

 crocuses and primroses, have leaves which can stand the 

 frosts of March ; but others, like the elm and almond, 

 have more delicate foliage, which consequently comes 

 out much later in the season. All these spring-flower- 

 ing plants lay by material somehow or other the sum- 

 mer before their next year's blossoms. The primrose 

 has its store of food-stuff in its thick and fleshy root- 

 stock ; the crocus and the autumn-saffron in their bulbs ; 

 the catkin-bearing trees, the elm and the almond, in 

 their inner bark and woody tissues. Trees, indeed, have 

 an immense advantage in their huge perennial trunks ; 

 for, before the foliage falls in autumn, they withdraw 

 all the useful material from the dying leaves, storing it 

 away in their permanent tissues ; and so almost all of 

 them are enabled to flower vigorously in spring before 

 any other plants, except the hoarders which possess 

 bulbs, have been able to anticipate them. 



