THE WILLOW TRIBE. 155 



nor any sort of covering to the stamens, beyond the 

 scale-like bracts, out of the bosom of which the sta- 

 mens or the pistils arise. These plants are Poplars 

 and Willows^ which together form the Willow tribe 

 (Plate XI. 2.). Their flowers grow in catkins (Jifjs. 

 1 & 4.) — those beautiful silky bodies, glittering as 

 it were with gold and silver, which are hailed by 

 northern nations as the earliest harbingers of spring, 

 and gathered for festivals under the name of Palms 

 near London, and of gostlings in some part of Eng- 

 land. The stamens are upon one plant, the pistils 

 upon another. The former are one, or two, or three, or 

 five, or more, to each bract {figs. 2. & 3.); the latter 

 are seated singly within a bract, and consist of an 

 ovary, having one cell with many seeds, and a lobed 

 stigma {fig. 5.). The fruit consists of hollow cases, 

 which split into two valves {fig. 6.), and discharge a 

 multitude of small seeds, covered wdth fine hair or 

 wool {fig. 7.)> like the seeds of the cotton plant. On 

 these do\Miy pinions the seeds will fly to great dis- 

 tances and scatter themselves over the whole face of 

 the country. The Willow is absolutely without any 

 trace of calyx ; the Poplar has a sort of membranous 

 cup, which may be considered the rudiment of one. 



In taking leave of these imperfectly formed orders, 

 I would recommend you to reduce their characters to 

 an analytical form, in order to see their differences the 

 more distinctly. You may do this in many ways, 

 of which the following will serve as an example. 



Two of them have the sepals combined into a tubu- 

 lar calvx, namclv, the Protea and Marvel of Peru 



