THE HORSE-CHESTNUT. 



i6i 



Lit the height to which animals sheltering beneath it would reach. 

 The furrows in the bark run in spiral lines round the trunk though 

 they are scarcely so marked as in the sweet chestnut. 



THE FLOWER AND NUT. 



The growth of the young head of flower has been already des- 

 cribed. By the end of May it is in full blossom. The thick 



upright stalk, some six or .seven inches long, is 

 green partly covered with brown pollen. It bears 

 at intervals and alternately, smaller stalks, the 

 lowest and longest set at right angles to it, the 

 upper ones, in succession, at more acute angles. 

 These secondary stalks bear from three to five 

 other and still smaller ones, clustered near the 

 tip. Each of these last supports a floret. 



The lower florets of the spike are fully 

 out while the pedicel is still capped by a mass of blunt oval buds 

 of dull pale green. Every floret has five (sometimes tour) petals, 

 springing from a cylindrical calyx tube. The petals are velvety 

 white and are bent backwards so that they display the delicate pink 

 and yellow tints of the centre, which is occupied by a white taper- 

 ing pistil and curved stamens tipped with salmon-coloured pollen-cases 

 shaped like an arrow. The sepals number five, and are small and 

 pale green. Usually there are seven stamens, sometimes six. 



Only a few of the numerous florets bear fruit. The fertile ones, 

 before the head of flower has faded, display the future nuts in the 

 form of pale green or white ovaries which protrude from their 

 centres. By the middle of June the fruit is about half-an-inch in 

 diameter and covered with soft white hairs : by the autumn these 



