76 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
black, as Tennyson, that close observer of Nature, 
knew, for beautiful Judith in his ‘‘ Gardener’s 
Daughter’’ had hair ‘‘ blacker than ash-buds in 
the front of March’’ (Fig. 12). 
Under the purplish-black wrappings which en- 
close these spring parcels, there is 
brown wool, which has protected the 
bud’s contents from wintry blasts, and 
under this blanketing we shall find 
stamens innumerable, but, as a rule, 
stamens only. These are minute at 
first, but they begin to stretch as soon 
Fig.12.—Buds #8 the bursting of the black case 
of th . 
(From on sets them free, and soon the stamen 
mronsce cluster becomes a conspicuous greenish- 
purple plume, branching freely, and composed of 
many long anthers on slender filaments. Towards 
the end of April these stamen-plumes fall, having 
shed all their pollen, and on the trees which have 
borne them seeds are not to be expected. For 
the pistils of most of the ashes grow on separate 
trees, in green, branching bunches, and by the time 
the leaves unfold each pistil will have developed 
into a winged fruit. 
But the April aspect of the common or ‘‘ white’’ 
ash hints to us that once upon a time ash-trees 
