368 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
veins, run obliquely and somewhat wavily to the 
leaf-margin, reticulating—as is the case with the 
venation in all our woodland Trees—in the leaf- 
spaces between the principal lines of the venation. 
The greenish yellow flowers of the Sycamore are 
produced before the leaves have reached their 
normal size; they contain a good deal of honey, 
and hence are much sought after by bees. The 
racemes of blossom—a raceme is a spike of 
flowers supported each on a short stem—hang 
droopingly from the twig, and, after fructifica- 
tion, the fruit produced is enclosed in a little cell 
provided with double wings, and called a double 
samara. Its colour, when ripe, is reddish brown, 
and it bears a striking resemblance to wings. 
Wings, indeed, they are in very truth, and their 
purpose is to enable the ripened seed to be wafted 
away during the high autumnal winds to some fit 
resting-place. It is this winged character of the 
Sycamore seed that accounts for the number of 
seedling Trees which are found growing in so 
many and such unexpected places. 
The Sycamore leaf has its season of beauty and 
its season of unloveliness—and this is the case, 
