BEECH FAMILY 



Staminate and a Pistillate 

 Flower of the Beech ; en- 

 larged. 



becoming brown on young trees often cling to the branches all win- 

 ter. When the leaves first appear in the spring they are heavily 

 charged with acid juice. Petioles short, 

 slightly grooved, hairy. Stipules caducous. 

 Flowers. — April, when leaves are one- 

 third grown. Staminate borne in globose 

 heads an inch in diameter on slender hairy 

 peduncles, the staminate flowers are yel- 

 lowish green and consist of a bell-shaped 

 four to seven-lobed calyx, corolla wanting, 

 stamens eight to ten, inserted on the calyx ; 

 filaments white, slender, exserted ; anthers 

 green, oblong, introrse, two-celled ; cells 

 opening longitudinally; ovary wanting. 



Pistillate flowers are borne in two-flowered clusters from the axils 



of the upper leaves surrounded by numerous awl-shaped bractlets. 



They consist of an urn-shaped calyx, tube three-angled, adnate to 



ovary ; limb four to five-lobed, corolla wanting, stamens wanting ; 



ovary inferior, three-celled, styles 



three, slender, exserted ; ovules 



two in each cell. The inner bracts 



in time become the fruiting invol- 

 ucre. When full grown this is 



dark green covered with prickles ; 



in autumn it becomes light brown, 



the prickles strongly recurved ; 



it is opened by the first severe 



frosts and remains on the branch 



after the nuts have fallen. 



Fruit. — Nut, triangular, pale 



chestnut brown, three-fourths of 



an inch long. Seed is sweet. It 



i^elieved that a beech must be 



fully forty years old before it 



fruits. 



We sometimes think that 

 the birds are the first heralds 

 of the spring, but it is not so. 

 Vegetation sleeps like a dog, 

 with one eye open, and no 

 sooner has the sun turned 



from his southern course than staminate and Pistillate Flower Clusters 

 ,, , . , , , of the Beech. 



nature in all her myriad buds 



watches for his coming. There are signs of spring to the 

 wise before a blue wing has beat toward the north or a robin 



380 



