320 WOODY PLANTS OF MASSACHUSETTS. 
bark is a reddish green, striated. with ash; the branches are in 
imperfect whorls, and stand nearly at right angles to the trunk, 
curving slightly from branchlet to branchlet. On old trees, the 
appearance of regular whorls in the branches 1s lost, from the 
smaller ones being outstripped by the larger, and some of them 
dying; and the graceful curvature is lost, and the branches are 
bare and crooked. The spray is long and irregular, forming a 
sharp angle with the small branches, and curving upwards. It 
is of a yellowish green color and downy surface. ‘The terminal 
buds are large, ovate, and invested at base with three or four 
scales of the color of the twig. 
The leaves of the same tree are remarkable for their variety 
of form. They are supported on petioles of one quarter or one 
fifth the length of the leaf, are acute or wedge-shaped at base, 
often entire, sometimes oval with an imperfect lateral lobe, 
more frequently, especially towards the ends of the branches, 
dilated and three-lobed. They are of a pleasant green; in the 
autumn becoming a delicate buff, leather ycllow or orange. 
The scales of the buds, which are covered with down, on ex- 
panding, remain to protect the branch of leaves and flowers 
which they enclosed, and which are alike clothed with a hairy 
or silken down. ‘This disappears from the upper surface of the 
leaves as they advance in age. The under surfacc is marked 
by prominent veins. ‘the flowers are on pendulous or nodding, 
slender, clustered racemes, in the axil of the bud-scales, below 
the leaves, around the base of the recent shoots. Each partial 
flower stall has, at its base, a slender, thread-like, villose bract, 
as long as the foot-stalk. In the sterile flowers, the calyx usually 
has six yellowish, oblong, petal-like pieces, united at base to 
form a cup, inside of which and opposite them are six stamens, 
forming one circle, and inside them and opposite the alternate 
ones, a circle of three stamens, on each side of each onc of 
which is an orange-colored gland on a short stalk. The an- 
thers are short, having two cells opening inward, and, above, 
two smaller cells opening obliquely upwards. The style, swell- 
ing at base, stands freely in the centre, but with no ovule within. 
‘The fertile flowers have only six short, imperfect stamens, in 
a single series. Ovary roundish, stigma on a short style. The 
