BIRCH FAMILY 
Flowers.—April, May, win the leaves. Moncecious, apetalous; 
the staminate naked in long pendulous aments. These aments 
appear in midsummer about one-half an inch long, stiff, tomentose, 
with light red brown scales ; they develop from lateral buds and are 
conspicuous during the winter. In the spring they become about 
two inches long, loose and drooping. The staminate flower is com- 
posed of from three to fourteen stamens crowded on a hairy torus, 
adnate to the base of a broadly ovate concave scale, which is con- 
tracted at the apex into a sharp point, ciliate at margin, longer than 
the stamens. The pistillate flowers are borne in erect lax aments, 
each flower enclosed in a hairy sac-like body formed by the union of 
a bract and two bractlets. Ovary, two-celled; style short, two- 
lobed ; ovule solitary. 
Fruit.—Strobile, consisting of a number of fruiting sac-like in- 
volucres, each inclosing a small flat nut. The fruit cluster is from 
one to two inches long, borne on a hairy stem and resembles a hop. 
To find in the forest a hop-bearing tree is to the uniniti- 
ated an experience, and the fruit of this Hornbeam so closely 
resembles that of the common hop-vine that it has given the 
name to the tree. In- 
deed, the tree seems 
to have very little that 
it can really call its 
own, for it resembles 
the birch in its leaf 
and the beech in its 
spray. One thing, 
however, is individual, 
it excels all the other 
trees of the forest in 
strength. When wood- 
men need a lever they 
seek at once fora Hop 
Hornbeam, whence its 
wild- wood name _ of 
Leverwood. 
Pistillate and Staminate Aments of Hop Hornbeam, ete a 
Ostrya virginiana. This is one of the 
solitary trees; never 
found in masses, it stands here and there in the forest and 
chooses only cool, fertile, shaded situations. The wood 
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