THE OAK TRIBE. 139 



The Hazel is one of the most accessible to you 

 when it is young, and a good illustration of the struc- 

 ture of the others. At the earliest period of the 

 spring you must haye remarked the branches of the 

 Hazel loaded with little yellow tails, which swing 

 about as the \yind disturbs them, and fill the air with 

 a fine and buoyant powder, the particles of which 

 may be seen glittering in the sunbeams like motes of 

 gold. These tails are called catkins (Plate X. 2. 

 Jig. 1. a.\ and are composed of a great number of 

 little scales, which are arranged one behind the other 

 with the utmost regularity, as you may easily discoyer 

 by inspecting them, before they separate. Each 

 scale has on its inner face about eight anthers, that 

 seem to arise out of a two-lobed flat body, which ad- 

 heres to the scale {fig. 2.) ; no other structure is to 

 be found ; apparently neither calyx, nor corolla, nor 

 pistil ; nothing but the two-lobed body sticking to 

 the scale and bearing the stamens. Botanists con- 

 sider the scales bracts, and the two-lobed body a 

 calyx in an imperfect state. 



This then is an instance of a simpler kind of orga- 

 nization, than any you haye before met w^th in a 

 flower. It is, howeyer, not quite characteristic of 

 the Oak tribe, for the Hornbeam has no calyx what- 

 ever, while the Oak, and the Beech, and the Sweet 

 Chesnut have a much more perfect one than the 

 Hazel. 



If the Hazel had none but stamen-bearing flowers, 

 you would never have any nuts in the autumn ; for 

 there is nothing in those flowers which could by any 



