SOME LESSONS IN BOTANY 71 
proper season and this makes it more interesting; but if preferred you 
can wait till the flowers develop outdoors. When your flowers are 
ready: 
(a) Examine them and learn to distinguish the staminate catkins 
from the pistillate catkins. In the former the stamens are tipped with 
golden or purple anthers; the others are smaller and greenish-gray and 
not so soft and fuzzy. 
(b) Draw (1) a staminate catkin; (2) a pistillate catkin; (3) an 
enlarged view of a small portion of a staminate catkin showing a few 
stamens plainly; (4) a similar view of a pistillate catkin showing a few 
seed pods. 
(c) Later, note that when the pollen has all been shed the staminate 
catkins wither and die, but the pistillate catkins develop tiny pods, if 
they were fertilized by pollen, and when these pods are ripe they will 
open and set free the: tiny seeds within them. These seeds are furnished 
with long, silky fuzz which enables them to float away upon the air. 
7. Other trees in bloom. — (a) Find cottonwood trees that bear 
pistillate flowers, and notice the clusters of seed pods; open some of 
them and examine the seeds with the tuft of down that carries them on 
the air and often makes a nuisance of them. Find trees bearing stam-- 
inate flowers. Would it be possible to raise only this kind and thus 
do away with the annoyance of flying cotton? At what stage of their 
growth could the selection be made? Make drawings of both kinds of 
blossoms. 
(b) The box-elder is another good tree to study. It belongs to a 
different family from the willow and the cottonwood, and its blossoms 
look very different, but the stamens and the pistils are borne on separate 
trees as in the case of the others. Find both kinds of flowers and note 
the appearance of each. Make drawings of them. Later in the season 
notice that only a portion of the trees bear seeds, — namely those that 
had pistillate flowers. 
(c) Study the various other trees that grow in your neighborhood 
and note their blossoms and their seeds. 
8. Flower clusters. — In the course of the season, as different flowers 
come into bloom, find illustrations of all kinds of flower clusters. It 
would be well to represent them by drawings, writing the name under 
each, as “A panicle, — oats,”’ “An umbel, — parsnips.”’ 
