30 LEAVES FROM AN APRIL JOURNAL. 



The harmony of this arrangement of the blossom 

 coming before the leaf is very interesting to con- 

 template. In many of our large trees and shi-ubs 

 this is the case. The alder, willow, walnut, oak, 

 beech, etc., are catkin-bearing trees. They have 

 two kinds of flowers, staminate and pistillate, which 

 are situated either on the same stem or on different 

 individual plants. Now, if the leaves came first, 

 they would interfere and to a great extent prevent 

 the wind from scattering the pollen of the catkins, 

 which fertilizes the pistillate blossom. Nature has 

 said to the leaves, " Wait ! do not come yet : the 

 boughs must be naked, that the wind may have a 

 free chance to strew the propagating dust on every 

 fertile flower." 



How carefuUy Nature has looked after and kept 

 green the radical leaves of the perennial herbs ! 

 Here is the five-finger, the swamp blackberry-vine, 

 and some of the composites, as freshly supplied 

 with chlorophyl as any of the after-leaves will be 

 a month from this date. The frost, strange as it 

 may appear, has not affected them : their roots, 

 stored with starch, keep them ever fresh and ready 

 with their gainful handicap to begin their race with 

 the annuals. The thick descending root^tocks of 

 the skunk cabbage are sending up everywhere in the 



