THE WILLOW. 
The willow that children know and love the best is 
the pussy willow. It grows in damp or swampy places 
and before the leaves come out 
in the spring the "pussies" are 
seen on the branches. They 
are little, soft, silvery pussies, 
and it is not everybody who 
knows what they really are. 
Each "pussy" or catkin, as 
we must call it, is a group of small 
flowers, or rather flower-buds, for after 
the flowers are fully out the pussies 
lose their soft, silky appearance and 
no longer deserve to be called pussies. 
The older catkins are covered with sta- 
mens full of yellow pollen or 
else with seed pods. For wil- 
lows bear two kinds of flowers, 
the stamen-bearing, or stam- 
inate flowers, and the seed- staminate cat- 
bearing, or pistillate flowers. kin fully out ' 
The staminate flowers grow on one willow tree, and 
the pistillate ones on another. 
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