THE ELM. 



101 



the seed-vessel, which does not open, but serves 

 as a wing to waft away the ripe seed, if it does 

 ripen, w^hich is not always the case. So nume- 

 rous and conspicuous are these seed-vessels, that 

 they might be mistaken, as indeed they sometimes 

 are, when seen from a distance, for tufted foliage, 

 an error which is all the more likely to occur 



SEED-VESSEL. 



because the leaves rarely begin to expand until 

 the seeds are nearly ripe. Few persons can have 

 failed to notice the numerous leaf-like plates flut- 

 tering tremulously through the air, during the 

 high winds of April, or sweeping in eddies along 

 the road in the neighbourhood of Elm-rows. 

 These are the seed-vessels just described ; and 

 there is something melancholy in the sight of them, 

 reminding us, as they do, of autumn and the fall 

 of the leaf, before spring has well set in. Towards 



