THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 
Vol. X JOUET, ILL., APRIL, 1906. No. i 
OUR AMENTACEOUS PLANTS. 
THE amentaceous plants form a large part of our spring 
flora, though in but few instances can it be called a 
conspicuous one. With the excephon of a few plants like 
the pussy-willow and the alder, the flowering parts are so 
little like ordinar\' blossoms that the casual observer rarely 
notices that they are in flower, and the botanist, himself, is 
usually not so familiar with them as he is with the more 
conspicuous members of our flora. Many people have an 
idea that several of these plants in some unexplained man- 
ner, bear fruit without the preliminary process or flower- 
ing. The average man is always surprised to learn that 
oaks bear flowers. 
There are several reasons w^hy these plants attract no 
more attention than they do when in flower. In the first 
place they have no showy petals or sepals to catch the eye, 
and the essential organs, the pistils and stamens, are usually 
greenish or pale yellow like the opening leaves. WTien 
these organs take on bright hues, as they do in the chest- 
nut, willow and cottonwood, they at once become notice- 
able. Again, the size of the individual flower makes 
them very inconspicuous. It is only by being assembled in 
spike-like groups, called catkins, that they attract any atten- 
tion at all. llie catkin may be said to be the badge of the 
order. It varies with the species, but in all it is essentially 
a slender axis along which many flowers are clustered. 
These flowers are rarely composed of both pistils and stam- 
ens ; usually the pistils are in one group and the stamens In 
another. Sometimes, as in the hazel, the two kinds of flow- 
ers are on diflFerent parts of the same plant : again, as in the 
