CHAPTER XXI 



OPENING BUDS 



As trees are found everywhere and form excellent material for 

 observation, in Chapter V (Part I) we departed somewhat from our 

 custom of merely suggesting lines of work to give an illustrated 

 account of leaves with indications as to their arrangement. By this 

 means it was hoped to make the task of finding out the names of 

 trees more easy. 



We do not intend to go into detail with regard to buds. They 

 will be found as a rule to be very characteristic of the trees which 

 produce them, and they may be used a good deal in the identification 

 of these. There lies before us a series of twigs, picked at random. 

 No one would confound the long, thin, pointed buds of the beech 

 with the small oval ones of the oak ; or the black scales of the ash 

 with the handsome reddish-green coverings of the sycamore buds. 



Before those whose taste leads them in course of time to consider 

 more than mere form or colour, there opens out the botanical question 

 of the relationships of the bud coverings to ordinary foliage leaves. 

 Again, some buds, and commonly those of herbaceous plants, are 

 without scales ; in others, such as the tulip tree, the wings on the 

 stalks of the ordinary leaves, which are as yet unfolded, serve to 

 protect them, while in such a tree as the false acacia the prickles 

 which remain when the leaves fall practically enclose the young- 

 buds. 



If we wait until the buds open as a matter of course, we shall 



