46 FAMILIAR TREES 
some extent crowded so as to form tufts at the ends 
of the branches, and from their “axils,” ze. the 
angles where they are given off from the stem, 
spring the long pendulous catkins of flowers. In 
a favourable autumn the leaves turn to a clear 
lemon-yellow, stained with orange and brown 
where damp decomposes the, as yet, perfect’ texture. 
Some of the leaves seem, however, first to clear 
their green, light green patches occurring at the 
base of “the sere, the yellow leaf,’ and the whole 
tree gaining a varied and revivified aspect, the 
forlorn hope of life before the winter death. 
Flowers of both kinds are borne on every tree. 
The slender yellowish catkins are five or six inches 
long, hanging from the axils of the young leaves 
in May. Each catkin bears a series of small scale- 
like “bracts,” some littie distance apart, and in 
the axil of each of these scales there are either 
seven staminate or three pistillate flowers. Each 
kind of flower is surrounded by a calyx of six 
minute greenish leaves, which in the female 
blossoms form a tube enclosing and adhering to 
the ovary. There are from eight to twenty stamens 
in each male flower, which discharge an enormous 
quantity of pollen, like a cloud of sulphur. So 
abundant is this pollen that, if it has not con- 
tributed, as has that of the Pine, to our tradi- 
tionary folk-lore concerning rains of sulphur, it will 
certainly cover the water of any neighbouring pond 
with its film of yellow dust, which is perhaps suf- 
ficient reason for not planting the tree on the 
margin of any small piece of ornamental water. At 
