ELM FAMILY 
Calyx.—Campanulate, four to nine-lobed, hairy, green, tingeu with 
red, becoming brown in fading ; lobes imbricate in bud. 
Corolla.— Wanting. 
Stamens.—Four to nine or as many as the calyx lobes and oppo- 
site to them, exserted ; filaments long, slender ; anthers bright red, 
two-celled, cells opening longitudinally; pollen shed before the 
stigmas mature. 
Pistil.—Ovary superior, two-celled; styles two, light green; 
ovules solitary. 
Fruit.—Samaras, winged al’ round, maturing as the leaves appear 
and clinging to the branch in clusters, ovate, one-seeded, one-half 
inch long, two-beaked, sharp points incurved and closing the notch, 
green, smooth on faces, densely ciliate at margins. Cotyledons flat, 
fleshy. 
Who knows not the ‘vine prop’ elm, with its lofty grace and slight bene- 
dictive droop, the oriole’s nest still swinging from the end of some branch? 
—EbirH THomas. 
White Elm and Silver Maple are the first trees to accept 
the challenge of March that spring has come, and they seal 
their acceptance with flowers not 
leaves, for the law of the wild 
wood is that forest trees shall 
produce flowers before leaves. 
The flower-buds are usually borne 
Ag 
Foive 
\, 
be 
Flowering Spray of White Elm, Ulmus americana. 
on the topmost branches of an elm tree, and even in February 
they respond to the kindly influence of a few warm days by 
becoming swollen and shining. \When March stops for a day 
or two to take his breath and the sun shines and the warm 
air comes up from the south, these swollen buds shake off 
their brown scales and come out as little clusters of eight to 
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