OCTOBER. 
329 
on the ground. The nuts are sweet and agreeable^ but are 
too small to be worth the labour of collecting. Among them 
are great numbers of the fruit of the sugar maple : it is a 
samara^ and very much resembles the wing and thorax of a 
large hymenopterous insect : the wing being full of longi- 
tudinal veins adds to the likeness : they usually grow in 
pairs, and might be taken for a pair of wings, but that the 
thorax is likewise double. This part is hollow, and contains 
the seed, the cotyledons of which are green, smooth, and 
long-oval : these, though more than an inch in length when 
unfolded, are so curiously convoluted and wrapped together, 
as to occupy a space little larger than the head of a large 
pin ; and this too is enclosed in a skin. Its taste is like that 
of the beech nut. The seeds of the birch are very small and 
flat, inserted beneath the scales of cones much like those of 
the pine family : like the seeds of most forest trees, they are 
almost confined to the topmost branches. The fruit of the 
ash is long-oval, thin, and flat ; it is a samara : the seed 
runs through the middle, but towards the lower end. One of 
the most curious of our forest seeds is that of the basswood : 
you may see one yonder slowly descending through the air : 
it whirls round horizontally with great rapidity, as it falls, 
as if on an axis or pivot. Take it up and examine it ; here 
is a long lance-oval leaf (bractea ) transversely bent in the 
middle : from the angle on the under side proceeds a slender 
stalk, at the end of which is fixed a round body like a pea, 
which looks, as it descends, as if it hung by a thread from 
the leaf-like wing. This contains the seed. 
