BEECH FAMILY 
becoming brown on young trees often cling to the branches all win- 
ter. When the leaves first appear in the spring they are heavily 
charged with acid juice. Vetioles short, 
ily grooved, hairy. Stipules caducous. 
slig 
flowers.--April, when leaves are one- 
third grown. Staminate borne in globose 
heads an inch in diameter on slender hairy 
peduncles, the staminate flowers are yel- 
lowish green and consist of a bell-shaped 
four to seven-lobed calyx, corolla wanting, 
A Staminate and a Pistillate stamens cight to ten, inserted on the calyx ; 
Flower of the Beech; en- filaments white, slender, exserted ; anthers 
larged. green, oblong, introrse, two-celled; cells 
opening longitudinally; ovary wanting 
Pistillate flowers are borne in two-flowered clusters from the axils 
of the upper leaves surrounded by numerous awl-shaped bractlets. 
They consist of an urn-shaped calyx, tube three-angled, adnate to 
ovary; limb four to five-lobed, corolla wanting, stamens wanting ; 
ovary inferior, three-cclled, styles 
three, slender, exserted; ovules 
two ineach cell. The inner bracts 
in time become the fruiting invol- 
ucre. When full grown this is 
dark green covered with prickles ; 
in autumn it becomes light brown, 
the prickles strongly recurved ; 
it is opencd by the first severe 
frosts and remains on the branch 
after the nuts have fallen. 
Fruit,—Nut, triangular, pale 
chestnut brown, three-fourths of 
an inch long. Seed is sweet. It 
is believed that a beech must be 
fully forty years old before it 
fruits. 
We sometimes think that 
the birds are the first heralds 
of the spring, but it is not so. 
Vegetation sleeps like a dog, 
with one eye open, and no 
sooner has the sun turned 
from his southern course than Staminate and Pistillate Flower Clusteto 
aes : of the Beech. 
nature in all her myriad buds 
watches for his coming, ‘There are signs of spring to the 
wise before a blue wing has beat toward the north or a robin 
38c 
