. Our native trees and how to identify them; a popular study of their habits and their peculiarities. Trees. BIRCH FAMILY Flowers.—April, May, with the leaves. Moncecious, apetalous ; the staminatc naked in long pendulous aments. These aments appear in midsummer about one-half an incli long, still', tomentose, with light red brown scales ; they develop from lateral buds and are conspicuous during the winter. In the spring they become about two inches long, loose and drooping. The staminate flower is com- posed of from three to fourteen stamens crowded on a hairy torus, adnata to the base of a
. Our native trees and how to identify them; a popular study of their habits and their peculiarities. Trees. BIRCH FAMILY Flowers.—April, May, with the leaves. Moncecious, apetalous ; the staminatc naked in long pendulous aments. These aments appear in midsummer about one-half an incli long, still', tomentose, with light red brown scales ; they develop from lateral buds and are conspicuous during the winter. In the spring they become about two inches long, loose and drooping. The staminate flower is com- posed of from three to fourteen stamens crowded on a hairy torus, adnata to the base of a broadly ovate concave scale, which is con- tracted at the apex into a sharp point, ciliate at margin, longer than the stamens. The pistillate flowers are borne in erect lax aments, each flower enclosed in a hairy sac-like body formed by the union of a bract and two bractlets. Ovary, two-celled ; style short, two- lobed ; ovule solitary. Fruit.—Strobile, consisting of a number of fruiting sac-like in- volucres, each inclosing a small flat nut. The fruit cluster is from one to two inches long, borne on a hairy stem and resembles a hop. To find in the forest a hop-bearing tree is to the uniniti- ated an experience, and the fruit of this Hornbeam so closely resembles that of the common hop-vine that it has given the name to the tree. In- ilecd, the tree seems to have very little that. it can really call its own, for it resembles the buxh in its leaf and the beech in its spray. One thing, however, is individual, it excels all the other trees of the forest in strength. When wood- men need a lever they seek at once for a Hop Hornbeam, whence its wild - wood name of Leverwood. This is one of the solitary trees ; never found in masses, it stands here and there in the forest and chooses only cool, fertile, shaded situations. The wood 318. Pistillate and Staminate Aments of Hop Hornbeam, O^trya Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that ma
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