BEECH FAMILY 



A Staminate and a Pistillate 

 Flower of the Beech ; en- 

 larged. 



becoming brown on young trees often cling to the branches all win- 

 ter. When the leaves first appear in the spring they are heavily 

 charged with acid juice. Petioles short, 

 slightly grooved, hairy. Stipules caducous. 

 Flowers. April, when leaves are one- 

 third grown. Staminate borne in globose 

 heads an inch in diameter on slender hairy 

 peduncles, the Staminate flowers are yel- 

 lowish green and consist of a bell-shaped 

 four to seven-lobed calyx, corolla wanting, 

 stamens eight to ten, inserted on the calyx ; 

 filaments white, slender, exserted ; anthers 

 green, oblong, introrse, two-celled ; cells 

 opening longitudinally; ovary wanting. 

 Pistillate flowers are borne in two-flowered clusters from the axils 

 of the upper leaves surrounded by numerous awl-shaped bractlets. 

 They consist of an urn-shaped calyx, tube three-angled, adnate to 

 ovary ; limb four to five-lobed, corolla wanting, stamens wanting ; 

 ovary inferior, three-celled, styles 

 three, slender, exserted ; ovules 

 two in each cell. The inner bracts 

 in time become the fruiting invol- 

 ucre. When full grown this is 

 dark green covered with prickles ; 

 in autumn it becomes light brown, 

 the prickles strongly recurved ; 

 it is opened by the first severe 

 frosts and remains on the branch 

 after the nuts have fallen. 



Fruit. Nut, triangular, pale r m^^jr\\w\i\\ - \ V.M 



chestnut brown, three-fourths of Mtf^ft V vllVx\ 



an inch long. Seed is sweet. It /%^ \ WHY A > V 

 is believed that a beech must be 

 fully forty years old before it 

 fruits. 



We sometimes think that 

 the birds are the first heralds 

 of the spring, but it is not so. 

 Vegetation sleeps like a dog, 

 with one eye open, and no 

 sooner has the sun turned 

 from his southern course than S 

 nature in all her myriad buds 

 watches for his coming. There are signs of spring to the 

 wise before a blue wing has beat toward the north or a robin 



380 



and Pistillate Flower Clusters 

 of the Beech. 



