In April Weather 51 
After a few gentle showers and a few days of 
sunshine, these brown spring parcels open wide 
enough to show us what Mother Nature has been 
hiding there. And before one has realized what 
is happening some of the trees are covered with 
woolly dangles, soft and gray as goslings which 
have just chipped the shell. Looking closely at 
one of these we see that it is a close chain ak 
scales, each clear and brown as a bit of tortoise- 
shell, and each bordered with a silvery fringe. 
Under each scale is a bunch of stamens which, 
when they first appear, are shrimp-pink, so that 
the whole dangle, closely examined, is a lovely 
harmony of soft color. But on the poplars which 
bear such catkins as these there are no pistils 
at all, and there will be no seeds later in the 
year. 
On other poplars, meantime, the pistil-bearing 
flower-buds, which hold the seed that is to be, 
are opéning. Their contents are at first much less 
attractive to the eye than are the soft dangles of 
pink and silver which issue from the staminate 
buds. 
Each pistillate bud consists of about six brown 
scales, which presently separate, and let out into 
the April weather an humble green catkin about 
