462 THE GOAT WILLOW. 



THE CATKIN. 



The male and female Catkin of the Willow group grow on 

 separate trees. The male Catkins are enclosed in a brittle brown case, 

 and arranged alternately along the twig. About the beginning of 

 February, while the leaves are still in bud, they burst their prison 

 and appear as erect silver-grey silky cones, about three-quarters of an 

 inch long. 



To the base of each the crisp bud-scale, retaining its cup-shape, 

 still clings. When this falls, the six or eight pointed, spreading 

 stipules at the base of the Catkin become visible. They are a delicate 

 greenish-yellow on the inner-side, that which in the bud was next 

 the Catkin ; the outer side is covered with silver hairs. 



The Catkins gradually acquire an oval shape, a length of about 

 an inch and a quarter, and a diameter of half to three-quarters of an 

 inch. They consist of a central green axis, standing out from the 

 twig, thickly covered with minute hairy segments. Each segment or 

 " flower " contains from two to live stamens, and a honey gland. 

 Every stamen has a two-lobed pollen sack supported on a long filament. 

 The colour ol the pollen, at first a sulphur yellow, changes to a 

 golden hue, and the hum of countless insects is heard round the flowers. 



The female or fertile Catkins will be found about April covered 

 with soft down. In place of the stamens of the male flower is 

 found a silky green ovary, surmounted by a style tipped with a pair 

 of stigmas. As the Catkin becomes ripe, the stigmas curl backwards 

 and downwards in opposite directions, forming as it were two croziers 

 on either side of a triangular upright tuft of silvery down. About the 

 end of April this tuft expands, enveloping the twigs in down, and 

 the tiny seeds it contains are wafted away by the wind. 



