In April Weather 53 
tightly away in little silvery buds. What appears 
to be foliage is innumerable seed-pods, hanging 
from the branches in countless chains. Later 
these pods will split open, and give to the spring 
breezes a great number of minute seeds, winged 
with cottony down. In localities where the white 
poplars abound, these seeds are sometimes shed in 
such numbers that they lie in sheltered places, 
blown into light heaps like the first snow before a 
November gale. 
The blossoms of the elm appear in great pro- 
fusion in latter March or early April. They grow 
huddled together in bunches, are of a delicate 
green, and are often mistaken for unfolding leaves. 
The buds whence they issue are dark-colored and 
large, and are scattered closely along the sides of 
the twigs, but seldom borne on the tips. Every 
one of these big buds is covered with a few brown 
scales, which separate in early spring, and let out 
into the sun ten or twelve slender stalks, each 
supporting a shallow green cup with a rim of 
golden-brown. Each cup is a flower, always pretty 
when one looks at it closely, and sometimes as 
perfect as the stateliest tulip. For it may con- 
tain from four to nine stamens, and in their midst 
a green, flat, heart-shaped pistil, forking into two 
