208 Marsh. 



others odoriferous ; but there can be no doubt that each 

 subserves some purpose beneficial to its possessor. 



We have found a great deal to interest us on these 

 willows. Let us turn now to the trees themselves. The 

 willows are a botanically interesting group of plants, al- 

 though botanists try to make them as difficult as possible to 

 understand. They have a very great tendency to vary, and 

 slight differences have been seized upon by specialists to 

 divide what are probably really only a few distinct spe- 

 cies into almost a hundred different kinds, which no two 

 botanists name alike. Even the plants which bear the differ- 

 ent sexes of the same flower offer a certain amount of differ- 

 ence ; for you must remember that, like so many of our trees 

 and shrubs, the willow has the stamens and pistil borne not 

 only in different flowers, but on different plants. With the 

 earliest advent of spring, before almost any other trees and 

 shrubs have wakened into life, the willows put forth their 

 luscious blossom, and provide a banquet for thousands of in- 

 sects both by day and by night. By day, flies swarm to the 

 feast ; by night their place is taken by hundreds of moths, 

 which revel in the intoxicating nectar secreted by the bloom. 

 Very different often at that time is the appearance of two 

 bushes close to each other. The one has its slender boughs 

 covered with bright yellow catkins, the other, with catkins 

 which are green, and the latter bush is altogether wanting 

 in the brightness of its neighbour; the former bears the 

 staminate, the latter the pistillate part of the flower. In 

 those early spring days, too 



" When the yellow catkins cover 

 All the slender willows over " 



an uncanny-looking individual with a comprehensive com- 



