146 WAYSIDE AND WOODLAND BLOSSOMS. 



about a dozen stamens at its base. The female flowers form 

 an erect flower-head, shaped like an artichoke at the end of a 

 twig, the three-lobed bracts each containing two flowers. After 

 fertilization these lobes enlarge considerably, and the flower- 

 head lengthens into the pendulous string of fruits shown in our 

 illustration. The flowers appear in May. 



The Osier (Salix viminalis). 



The Willow family, to which the Osier belongs, is, like the 

 Brambles, a difficult group even for the botanist, and he is a 

 bold man or a very clever one who undertakes to identify 

 specimens off-hand. They have suffered much at the hands 

 of the " splitter." Hooker gives the number of British species 

 as eighteen, with a considerable number of varieties ; but by 

 Babington many of these varieties are given specific rank, 

 and his list of species runs to fifty-eight. It would, of course, 

 be absurd for us to attempt in this restricted space to give a 

 key even to Hooker's list ; but our details of the flower struc- 

 ture, etc., will be found to apply in the main to all willows, and 

 for a knowledge of the other species our readers must refer to 

 Hooker. It should be added that, to increase the difficulties of 

 the botanist, the plants that bear male flowers as a rule differ 

 considerably from those that produce female flowers ; for with 

 scarcely an exception each plant is of one sex only. 



The Osier (S. viminalis) is one of our most common species, 

 and is the one most generally used for basket-weaving. It is 

 a large shrub or low bushy tree, growing in wet places beside 

 rivers and pools, or more frequently in Osier-beds. When 

 allowed to grow uncut it attains a height of twenty or thirty 

 feet ; its long, smooth, and straight branches well furnished 

 with very narrow leaves, tapering to a fine point, and sometimes 

 nearly a foot in length. The margins of the leaf are quite free 

 from teeth or lobes, and are curled -back on the shining white 

 silky underside. Both male and female flowers form catkins : 



