66 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
Many sorts are what botanists call ‘‘ naked,’’ 
having neither calyx nor corolla. 
Many sorts are also what botanists call ‘‘im- 
perfect,’’—that is, having either stamens and no 
pistils, or else pistils and no stamens. 
One flower may be a pistil or cluster of pistils, 
surrounded by a few scales, and its ‘‘affinity’’ is 
a bunch of stamens and a scale or two; and these 
two incomplete blossoms may grow, not only on 
separate branches, but in separate trees. 
As these forest-tree flowers have, generally speak- 
ing, neither bright colors, nor honey, nor fragrance, 
we surmise that their messenger is the wind, 
which blows when and where it lists, and is not 
to be coaxed by the methods which ‘‘ take’’ with 
insects. 
And because the wind is their go-between, these 
blossoms appear, sometimes before the leaves issue 
from the buds, and almost always before they 
expand, for foliage would be seriously in the way 
of pollen as it flew from bough to bough or from 
tree to tree. The stamens are borne in long, 
drooping dangles or ‘ 
the lightest breath, so that the pollen is shaken 
“catkins,’’ which sway with 
out even by the faintest zephyrs of a spring day. 
The pollen of most forest-trees is light and dry, 
