90 
they have lost all their rigidity and so they come to be suspended 
from the twigs and every breath of air shakes them and frees the 
ripe pollen from the stamens and blows it away in yellow clouds, 
By this means the pollen is carried to the pistillate flowers of the 
same or of different plants. These flowers are arranged in much 
non dark red oblong spikes from between the scales from 
one can see the small crimson stigmas extending. In the 
hazel the pistillate flowers are difficult to discover since the spike 
is very short and is completely enclosed by the bud scales. 
They are, however, betrayed by He red stigmas which pro- 
trude in a bunch from the apex of th 
Two species of alder may at the oe writing be found in 
ssom, thi mon bushy green alder and the European alder 
(Abus glutinosa), a tree of extremely rapid growth. The pistil- 
late aments of the latter are shorter and nod while those of the 
ormer are upright. Our illustration is of a very fine though 
small plant of the bush alder in full flower. The ei cat- 
kins which are seen are the pollen-producing ones, while among 
these here and there may be seen the still paris aaiibe 
aments of last year as groups of rounded bodies. The young 
ones of this year are too small to appear in the photograp 
The wind has been referred to above as the agent for carrying 
the pollen from the stamen to the stigmas. It is, however, a 
fact not generally known, that the pollen of the willows is trans- 
ferred by means of insects, and at the present writing during the 
warmer part of the day a great many small bees may be seen 
gathering nectar from the nectaries with one of which each flower 
is provided. The tree profits by these visits by using the insects 
for the transfer of pollen to the stigmas of the aie flowers, 
which in the case of the willows occur on different tre 
FRANCIS E. ote 
WEATHER AND PHENOLOGY FOR MAY. 
The climatology of the Garden for May embraces several 
features of unusual interest. The minimum temperatures of 32, 
26, 29 and 38-on the 6th, roth, 11th and 12th, were followed 
