350 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW IScd— Nov., 1919 



burst into bloom. "You almost feel as if the yellow flowers had 

 made a mistake," says Mrs. Danna and Julia E. Rogers mentions 

 them as "Little weazened faces peeking at one from all angles of 

 the twig with their yellow cap strings flying in the wind." 



Often the petals dry like shavings and stay on till spring. There 

 is no growth in the ovary until spring so there does not seem to be 

 much gained by this autimin blooming. In the spring the witch- 

 hazel is the most inconspicuous of all shrubs. Its leaves look old 

 and dingy compared to the bright new leaves of other trees. This 

 is due to tiny rusty hairs which cover the leaves and which are of 

 special interest to botanists because each branches into a star- 

 shaped top. Another reason for its being inconspicuous is that 

 there is no sign of bloom until fall while all other shrubs are blossom- 

 ing profusely. 



Another interesting thing about the witch-hazel are the seeds 

 and the way they are distributed. The fruit or ovary is a nut with 

 an outer velvety green-brown husk — an inner hard shell and two 

 brown smoothly polished seeds in close fitting cells. The fruit, 

 when husk is opening, bears an odd resemblance to a grotesque 

 monkey-like face with staring eyes. The fruit, not being bright 

 colored and juicy or good to eat, and not likely to tempt either boy 

 or bird to carry it off, and not having hooks with which to steal a 

 ride, or sails or wings with which to fly, it must find some other 

 way. This is what it does. When a frost comes the tiny jaws or 

 sides open and the husk in drying presses hard against the shiny 

 black seeds which are thus sent out with such force that they go 

 many feet, sometimes as far as 45 feet from parent plant. Really 

 they are shot out into the world. This is rather a rough way of 

 handling the young and not a very common habit among plants. 

 The wild geranium and touch-me-not do so however. The fruit 

 takes a full year to ripen and is ready to be discharged in the fall 

 when the flowers come. Wm. Hamilton Gibson wrote of the 

 witch-hazel "I had been attracted by a bush which showed an 

 unusual profusion of bloom and while standing close beside it in 

 admiration I was suddenly stung on the cheeck by some missile and 

 the next instant shot in the eye by another, the mysterious marks- 

 man having apparently let go both barrels of his Httle gun directly 

 in my face. I soon discovered him, an army of them, — in fact a 

 saucy legion, all grinning with open mouths and white teeth 

 exposed and their double-barreled guns loaded to the muzzle ready 

 to shoot whenever the whim should take them." 



