THE BUDS AND BLOSSOM OF TREES 155 



the poplars in an English garden or hedgerow, and 

 is far more useful as timber than the quick-growing 

 and ornamental abele. We need another flowering 

 tree. Even the blossoms of the lime would be less 

 seen and admired were it not for their scent and the 

 attraction which they offer to the bees. Were the 

 flowers of oak and elm, of poplar and of fir dependent 

 on the bees, rather than on the wind, for fertilization 

 and the carriage of the pollen from flower to flower, 

 they would be better known and appreciated than they 

 are. But the pines at least attract the early bees. In 

 the hot spring of 1893, the upright spikes of yellow, 

 clustering flowers on the Austrian pines were crowded 

 with the working bees, which laboured among the 

 dusty piles till their bodies were covered with pollen, 

 like flour-porters in the docks. The blossoms of the 

 silver firs, the " balm of Gilead " of rural botanists, 

 usually borne so high on the lofty summits that no 

 bee would soar to reach them, studded even the lower 

 branches, and revealed to ground-walking mortals a 

 new feature of the flower-garden which lies in the 

 upper storeys of the woods. Now that the pear and the 

 cherry, the peach and plum, the apple and the quince, 

 and, above all, the early and beautiful almond, are once 

 more hastening into blossom, can we not take a lesson 

 from Japan, and plant, not in isolated trees, but in 

 orchards and groves, the double plum, and the pink- 

 flowering cherry, which, for a few weeks, will fill our 

 parks and gardens with the blossom and colour which 

 even March winds cannot kill ? 



