588 SWEET CHESTNUT TREE. 



tip are conspicuous for the contrast between the straight line of 

 the mid-rib and the sharp spiney margins of the blade, which are 

 still folded together. The leaves at the base of the shoot, which 

 were the first formed, now begin to flatten out. Two narrow pointed 

 green stipules spring from the base of each leaf-stalk ; they turn brown 

 and papery and fall before the leaf has ceased to grow. The new 

 shoot is now of a bright green. 



THE FLOWERS AND FRUIT 



The catkins appear about June on the new shoots. Male and 

 female flowers are produced on the same tree, in fact on the same 

 catkin, though the catkins do not all carry female flowers. The 

 male flowers occupy the chief part of the catkin, the female 

 flowers being found only near its base. The catkins spring singly 

 from the axils of the leaves ; each one consists of a green, stiff, twisted 

 axis, usually either horizontal or hanging, but occasionally upright, which 

 is about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter and tour to seven inches 

 long. At intervals down its whole length it is studded with pairs 

 or groups of flowers. 



The Male Flowers are very plentiful. Each flower is made up of 

 many florets, and each floret consists of a calyx of five or six yellowish 

 green scales, from which project a number of thin stamens tipped with 

 sulphur-coloured pollen sacs. 



The Female Flowers are comparatively scarce. They are usually 



found on those catkins which 



CVPVI.& WITH 



— ■ ;^, spring from the axils of the leaves 



/ *^2 tt » ^-cn SiMWffi^*' nearest the apex of the shoot. 



The flower is made up of a 

 _c,-ji^~ cupule of bracts covered with 

 prickles, which encloses the 



