ELM-TREE BOUQUETS 
scales are discarded by the flower buds as they unfold 
themselves. Yet how few people know this and realize 
that the great tree is flowering. 
A few stop to enjoy the evidence of the unfolding of 
early spring that is taking place overhead. Those who 
look up catch the mild, purplish tint that fills the whole 
treetop. A further investigation will show that every 
twig of the tree is hung with purplish, red-brown 
flowers. If it could be viewed from above, seen from 
the outside, its whole great dome, the biggest of any 
American tree, would appear as a mass of these flowers. 
Now it is that the elm, built like a vase and spilled 
over with the spray of its branches, comes into the day 
of its glory as Nature’s master vase. 
Some weeks later in the spring the elm again sprinkles 
the sidewalk. This time its offering is in the form of in¬ 
numerable particles that shimmer down through the air 
and sunshine or drift far away on the wind. These are 
disk-like in form. Their edges are built for air floating, 
but in the center is a hard little object that is an elm 
seed. It is thus that the great tree sets about getting its 
seeds planted that there may be other elms to bloom in 
the spring when it is gone. 
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