206 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



manufactures through the summer in its large 

 flat leaves it lays by in its stem to supply the 

 young shoots and branches at the beginning of 

 the subsequent season. But at last, when it has 

 reached the height and girth of a small tree, it 



/ begins to store up protoplasm and starches for 

 blossom also. Some of its buds are now leaf- 



"buds, but some are flower-buds, produced in 

 autumn, and held over till April. In the spring 

 these flower-buds lengthen and produce bunches 

 of blossoms, which we call catkins, some of 

 them males, and some females, but both sexes 

 growing on the same tree together. They 

 bloom, like most otEer catkins, in the early 

 spring, while the leaves are still very little 

 developed, so as to prevent the foliage from 

 interfering with the carriage of the pollen. The 

 males are produced in hanging clusters an inch 



. or so long ; while the females stand u^ in small 

 globular bunches, on erect flower^sTems. They 

 are wind-fertilised ; and shortly after flowering, 

 the male catkins d.rop off entire, having done 

 their life-work, while the females swell out into 

 the familiar husks or four-valved cups, con- 

 taining each some two or three triangular 

 nuts, richly stored with food-stuffs. 



The agave only flowers once, and then dies 

 down, exhausted. But the beech goes on 

 flowerin^or "many years together, and grows 

 meanwhile larger and larger in bulk, its trunk 

 increasing in girth, and becoming buttressed at 

 the base, so as to support the large head of 

 branches and the dense mass of foliage. For 

 the boughs are so arranged that a great crown 



