54 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
feathery prongs. But almost every cluster contains 
some flowers which have no pistils at all—only 
stamens. These have no use for their pollen at 
home, and will send it all out into the world. 
Sir John Lubbock says it flies on the wings of 
the wind. Another excellent authority reckons the 
elm-blossom among honey-bearing flowers, and says 
its pollen travels on the bodies of early-roving 
flies and bees. 
Probably both authorities are right, and the 
habits of the trees are even now undergoing a 
change. It may be that the elms, which are 
gradually learning to bear stamens and pistils in 
separate flowers, are also, by slow degrees, dis- 
pensing with the services of that wasteful pollen- 
carrier, the wind, and learning to utilize those safer 
and surer messengers, flying insects. In some 
future day they may reach the condition of the 
red maples, which are almost wholly dependent 
upon insect ministrations. 
All the earliest tree-blossoms, poplar, swamp- 
willow, elm, and red maple, come out of buds 
which contain flowers only. On the trees which 
bear them are other buds from which the foliage 
expands later. But some buds contain both foliage 
and flowers. The great horse-chestnut buds, those 
