. Our native trees and how to identify them; a popular study of their habits and their peculiarities. Trees. BEECH FAMILY. A and a Pistillali Flower ol the Beech ; en larged. becoming brown on young trees often cling to the branches all win- ter. When the leaves first appear in the spring they are heavily charged with acid juice. Petioles short, slightK- grooved, hairy. Stipules caducous. /•~/ci2l\ts.—April, when lea\es are one- third grown. Staniinate borne in globose heads an inch in diameter on slender peduncles, the staminale tlowers are yel- lowish green and consist of a
. Our native trees and how to identify them; a popular study of their habits and their peculiarities. Trees. BEECH FAMILY. A and a Pistillali Flower ol the Beech ; en larged. becoming brown on young trees often cling to the branches all win- ter. When the leaves first appear in the spring they are heavily charged with acid juice. Petioles short, slightK- grooved, hairy. Stipules caducous. /•~/ci2l\ts.—April, when lea\es are one- third grown. Staniinate borne in globose heads an inch in diameter on slender peduncles, the staminale tlowers are yel- lowish green and consist of a bell-sliaped four to seven-lobed calyx, corolla warning, stamens eight to ten, inserted on the caly.\ ; filaments white, slender, exserted ; anthers green, oblong, introrse. two-celled ; cells opening longitudinally; ovary wanting. Pistillate flowers are borne in two-flowered clusters from the axils of the upper leaves surrounded by numerous awl-shaped bractlets. They consist of an urn-shaped calyx, tube three-angled, adnate to ovary ; limb tour to hre-lobed. corolla wanting, stamens wanting ; ovary inferior, three-celled, styles three, slender, exserted ; o\ules two in each cell. The inner bracts in time become the fruiting invol- ucre. When full grown this is dark green covered with prickles ; in autumn it becomes light brown, the prickles strongly recurved ; it is opened by the first severe frosts and remains on the branch after the nuts have fallen. Fruit.—Nut, triangular, pale chestnut brown, three-fourths of an inch long. Seed is sweet. It is believed that a beech must be fully forty years old before it fruits. \Ve sometimes think that the birds are the first heralds of the spring, but it is not so. Vegetation sleeps like a dog, with one e\-e open, and no sooner has the sun turned from his southern course than nature in all her myriad buds watches for his coming. There are signs of spring to the wise before a blue wing has beat toward the north or a robin. Please no
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublishernewyo, bookyear1910
