156 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



violet tinged with white. In the language of flowers it is the symbol of " the 

 first emotion of love." 



The flowers of the ash are remarkably curious and worth close examination. 

 They are simplicity itself, being utterly destitute of any floral covering, as 

 there is not the faintest rudiment of a calyx or corolla present, hence they 

 are called achlamydeous, meaning without a coat. They are also known as 

 polygamous, because three different kinds of flowers occur, viz. : staminate, 

 pistillate, and hermaphrodite. The blossoms appear in April and May, in 

 dense clusters, on the wood of the former year's growth, the staminate being 

 particularly conspicuous, as they form thick brown or dark purplish masses 

 at the extremities of the branches. The flower -buds being produced in the 

 axils of the leaves, they always appear in pairs on the opposite sides of the 

 branch, whilst underneath them is seen the very evident scar where the leaf 

 had been attached. Examining first a staminate cluster, when the bud scales 

 are thrown off, the infloresence is seen to be very much branched, each branch 

 bearing six or more flowers, at the base of each branchlet is a small fringed 

 scale, which sometimes assumes a leaf-like form, but more generally drops 

 off when the flower expands. The flower itself is simply two stamens without 

 the vestige of a style or ovary. The anthers are large, of a purplish brown 

 or carmine hue, when mature they open by two longitudinal slits, and emit 

 the dry powdery yellow pollen in great profusion, when this duty is dis- 

 charged the whole infloresence shrivels and drops off. In the hermaphrodite 

 flowers, the only difference is that between each pair of stamens is a flattened 

 ovary, surmounted by a rosy-tipped stigma. It is only comparatively rarely 

 that these stigmas are fecundated and produce seed bearing fruit. In the 

 pistillate flowers, the stamens are quite rudimentarjr, being functionally abor- 

 tive, and never perfecting their pollen, but the pistils are all fertile, and when 

 mature they form the familiar " ash keys/' or winged fruits. To these, as a 

 ready means of dispersion, is to be attributed the appearance of ash trees, so 

 frequently seen on the tops of walls and inaccessible cliffs, to which they 

 have been carried by the winds, for which their structure admirably adapts 

 them. If one of these winged fruits be cut open a single large pendulous 

 seed will be seen filling the cavity, suspended by a long slender hair-like 

 stalk. These pendent clusters of fruit, which remain upon the trees well 

 through the winter, were at one time pickled with salt and eaten as a salad or 

 relish, before sugared preserves were so common. Like the olive tree, which 

 only produces a full crop on alternate seasons, if an ash tree has been obser- 

 ved loaded with its winged fruits one season, the succeeding one it will be 

 found almost or entirely sterile, as if it had exhausted itself with its previous 

 efforts. Old writers on botany had noted that some ash trees were invariably 



