TREES THAT BLOOM IN EARLY SPRING In late March, or early in April, before the leaves have come out on any of the trees along your street, you may look out of an upper window and notice that strange-looking tassels are hang ing on the twigs of a poplar or cottonwood tree. Its buds are large and they shine in the sun, as if they were wet. A day or two later you may be walking with your mother or sister, and she will be startled to see the sidewalk covered with what look to her like great red caterpillars! Then you may remember the tree with the tassels on it, and recognise them, and explain where they came from.
A single look shows that this worm-like object is a catkin, and the lovely red is the colour of the many stamens that contain the pollen dust. When this is ripe the stamens burst and let it fly away. Then the tree lets its catkins fall, for they have done their part.
Green catkins hang on other trees of the same kind in the neighbourhood. The flowers are waiting for pollen that will enable them to set seed. If the wind blows in the right direction when the pollen is flying about, the green, fertile flowers will get all they need. These catkins are not shed as the red ones are. They make little show among the opening leaves, but little seed balls take the place of the flowers. By the end of May the green balls the size of peas turn yellow, and open. Out of each pod floats tufts of white down, each bearing away a tiny white seed. This is the end of the story. Before the chestnut trees have begun to blossom, the poplars have scattered their seeds, and have all the summer to spend in growing long, supple shoots covered with their dancing, shining leaves. They look as if they enjoy life! The pussy willows push their fuzzy noses out in winter. Some are even showing in autumn. But the yellow pollen is not seen on these flowers until the catkins are full grown, and they wait till winter is past. They dare not risk a frost.
Among pussy willow trees there is a difference in the catkins. On one tree they turn yellow when mature; the golden pollen dust rises in a cloud when the twig is disturbed. These catkins soon fall off.
On other trees the catkins are greenish, and they stay on after reaching full size. They are the fertile flowers, which develop into seed pods. Pollen brought to them by the wind or by visiting insects in search of nectar, insures the setting of seed in these flowers. Though the gayer flowers fall, they are quite as necessary to the making of seeds as the fertile ones. In all the willows and poplars, it requires two trees, bearing the two kind of flowers, to make the seed. And
the wind and nectar-seeking insects are necessary as pollen-carriers.
In marshy land, or by a brook or river, or even just outside the window at home, there is a tree that turns rosy in March with a multitude of small red flowers clustered on the sides of its twigs. It is the swamp maple, the red maple, the river maple, the scarlet maple. Two of these names tell of the tree's thirst; two name its colour when in blossom, and also when the leaves change colour in autumn.
Each flower is a red bell, for the petals are red. One has a red forked pistil thrust out; another lacks a pistil, but has a cluster of yellow stamens. One tree may be deep red throughout, having only pistillate flowers. Another may have only staminate flowers; it will be orange coloured, by the blending of the colours of the yellow stamens, and the red petals. Another tree may have flowers of both kinds. Occasion ally flowers will be found that have both stamens and pistils.
The bees are in the scarlet maples at the first loosening of the bud scales. There is nectar in those flower bells. The colour and a faint fragrance tell this secret. From pollen flowers the busy insects carry the golden dust to the forked pistils that set seeds.
The wind helps by scattering pollen in the tree tops, and very soon the flowers are gone. The staminate trees turn green when the opening leaves lose their vivid red. The pistillate trees hang out red clusters of winged seeds below the opening leaf clusters. These red trees keep their name written plainly as long as the seed clusters swing.
Early in March, the side buds on the elm twigs begin to swell, and soon clusters of purplish flowers, small but very pretty, come out of the largest buds, and the tree top has a purplish haze upon it, that means that spring is coming. The bees come to get nectar from these early blossoms, but few people speak of the blossoming elms. They do not notice that elms ever blossom; and are rather incredulous when a spray is shown them covered with the graceful little tassels. " Who ever heard of elms having flowers? " The truth is that every tree, when it is large enough, bears flowers. Not every one bears fruit, for some have pollen flowers only, the seeds being borne on the fertile trees. Elms have perfect flowers, and soon after the leaves open, the green fruits are seen in clusters, and before May passes, the seeds, each surrounded by an oval wing, flutter off in the wind.