HORSE-CHESTNUT FAMILY 



within its scales the leaves and flowers of the coming 

 year. 



These buds are gummy and resinous all the time, but 

 when February comes and spring is in the air, they feel its 

 influence afar and glisten and glitter in the sunlight. When 

 the warm days really come the resinous coats drop off and 

 the leaves — tiny, downy, green babies, done up in woolly 

 blankets — come out with infancy written on every line of 

 their drooping surfaces. 



The gray hoss-chestnut's leetle hands unfold 

 Softer'n a baby's be at three days old. 



Not until they are full grown are they able to hold them- 

 selves horizontal. The growth of the leaves and shoots is 

 e.xtremely rapid. 



The flowers of the Horse-chestnut are superb, and a fine 

 tree in full bloom is a magnificent sight. The flower clusters 

 are what the botanists call a thyrsus. When a single flower 

 stands upon its own stem it is said to be solitary. When 

 this stem becomes a central axis and bears smaller stems 

 along its length the result is a raceme. When these sec- 

 ondary stems themselves branch, the raceme becomes a 

 panicle, and when this panicle stiffens and holds itself erect 

 it becomes technically a thyrsus. A well-known example is 

 the flower cluster of the common lilac. 



It is always a surprise that there should be so few nuts 

 produced from such an abundance of bloom, for in spite of 

 all this floral display each cluster produces but two or three 

 fruit balls, and some of them not any. The reason is that 

 very few of these flowers are fertile, the most of them have 

 stamens only, with an aborted pistil which cannot produce 

 fruit. The fertile blossoms are at the base of the cluster. 



The round, prickly, fruit balls split open when autumn 

 comes and show themselves to be lined with a strong white 

 covering ; tliev are partitioned in the middle and contain 

 two nuts, which look in color, markings, and polish for all 

 the world like a bit of well-rubbed mahogany. 



.s8 



