There is stateliness, even stiffness, in the figure of a blossoming horse chestnut—a pyramid of green holding up a thousand pyramids of white. The catalpa has a round head, and the loose flower clusters are quite informal in their ar rangement. The flowers nod gracefully on their stems—a thing the horse chestnut flowers are unable to do.
Why are the dots of colour sprinkled in the throat of the flower? Why are they arranged in lines that lead to the nectar sac ? To guide the bees which come in swarms in answer to the signals of colour and fragrance the flowers fling out as lures to them.
The two stamens are ripe before the pistil. The bee rubs the pollen off by crowding into the flower. Some of this dust is bound to be rubbed off on the ripe stigma of an older blossom visited by this bee. Thus, unconsciously the bee helps the tree to set good seed. Of these we will study when we come to the tree again in autumn. Only a hint of the seed vessel is given by looking at the oldest flower in a cluster, and noticing the green part at the base.
The linden or basswood holds its arms out so that the broad leaves are exposed to the sun in slanting strata, or platforms of shade, that strike downward. The tree's frame is roofed in with them in an almost unbroken thatch of green. Cattle love to crop this foliage, and to
enjoy the dense shade on a hot day.
In July the dark green is illuminated by thou sands of starry white blossoms, a few at the end of a slender stem that rises out of a pale green, leaf-like blade. There is nothing like it borne on any other tree.
The news that the baiswoods are in bloom reaches the hives in good time. One is able to hear the murmur of bees as far as he can see the flowers, but the fragrance travels much farther. Basswood honey is higher in price than other kinds. Is this the reason the bees are so hard at work? Small as the individual flowers are, they have an unusual supply of nectar, and the bees revel in the plenty of what will feed them and yield wax. They make honey while the sun shines, counting the basswoods their best source of the crude materials for honeymaking. It was so in the days of old. Greek poets sang of the honey-laden lindens. Honey made from linden trees in the Lithuanian forests was carried to Rome, where it sold for three times the price of ordinary honey.
Bees swarm, and the new colony often takes to the woods and sets up housekeeping in a hol low tree. This is so likely in the Southern states to be a linden that " bee tree " is a familiar name of this tree.