ELM FAMILY 



Calyx. Campanulate, four tonine-lobed, hairy, green, tinged with 

 red, becoming brown in fading ; lobes imbricate in bud. 



Corolla. Wanting. 



Stamens. Four to nine or as many as the calyx lobes and oppo- 

 site to them, exserted ; filaments long, slender ; anthers bright red, 

 two-celled, cells opening longitudinally ; pollen shed before the 

 stigmas mature. 



Pistil. Ovary superior, two-celled; styles two, light green; 

 ovules solitary. 



Fruit. Samaras, winged all round, maturing as the leaves appear 

 and clinging to the branch in clusters, ovate, one-seeded, one-half 

 inch long, two-beaked, sharp points incurved and closing the notch, 

 green, smooth on faces, densely ciliate at margins. Cotyledons flat, 

 fleshy. 



Who knows not the ' vine prop ' elm, with its lofty grace and slight bene- 

 dictive droop, the oriole's nest still swinging from the end of some branch? 



EDITH THOMAS. 



White Elm and Silver Maple are the first trees to accept 

 the challenge of March that spring has come, and they seal 



their acceptance with flowers not 

 leaves, for the law of the wild 

 wood is that forest trees shall 

 produce flowers before leaves. 

 The flower-buds are usually borne 



Flowering Spray of White Elm, Ulmus americana. 



on the topmost branches of an elm tree, and even in February 

 they respond to the kindly influence of a few warm days by 

 becoming swollen and shining. When March stops for a day 

 or two to take his breath and the sun shines and the warm 

 air comes up from the south, these swollen buds shake off 

 their brown scales and come out as little clusters of eight to 



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