137 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



April or May, and are of three kinds : staminate, consisting 

 of two dark purple stamens only ; pistillate, consisting of an 

 oblong ovary with short style and cleft stigma ; hermaphrodite, 

 consisting of ovary and two anthers with very short filaments. 

 These flowers are individually small and inconspicuous, but 

 associated as they are in dense panicles from the new wood 

 formed in the previous season, and appearing before the black 

 leaf-buds have burst ; they are collectively very conspicuous. 

 The leaves are very late in making their appearance, as they 

 are among the first to fall after the early frosts of autumn. 

 The " keys," as the fruits are called, each contain two seeds, 

 and the wing has a twist which causes the key to spin rapidly 

 when the breeze separates it from the bunch and carries it far 

 from the parent tree. 



The Black Mulberry (Morus nigra). 



It may surprise some of our readers to learn that the Mul- 

 berry-tree is not a native, though it is a familiar object in old 

 gardens and parks. It is generally stated that the first 

 Mulberry-trees were introduced in 1 548 and planted at Syon 

 House, Isleworth (then the Convent of St. Bridget of Zion), but 

 the Duke of Northumberland is credited with saying early in the 

 present century that he could then trace them back quite three 

 hundred years. Several of this batch are still living, and one 

 probably the finest old Mulberry in England is a hale and 

 vigorous ornament to Mr. George Manville Fenn's lawn at 

 Syon Lodge. Mr. Leo Grindon is of opinion that the tree 

 was originally introduced by the Romans, for he finds that the 

 Saxons had a name for it, which would probably not have 

 been the case had it not been growing in their midst. 



In this country the Black Mulberry does not reach a greater 

 height than about thirty feet, its branches spreading out near 

 the ground and attaining considerable thickness. The leaves 



