Part 15

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 hanging 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. Occasionally 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.

THE AMERICAN ELM AND ITS KIN

Beautiful and stately, yet full of grace is the form of a big elm tree against the grey sky of a cloudy winter day. The tall trunk is crowned with many main branches, which spread into a widening funnel shape, subdividing into numberless smaller branches, whose direction is outward and downward. The numerous twigs have the droop of a weeping willow. The tree top is wonderful when every limb is bare.

In summer the same tree is a great fountain of green leaves. The long, leafy twigs of new wood are flung out to the wind, and the twinkling blades dazzle the eyes like spray. This is the time that we love the elm for its shade, and as an ornament to home grounds and parks. Roadside elms are the favourite nesting trees of the Baltimore oriole, whose hanging pocket of grasses and yarns swings at the end of a high outer branch.

When winter is still in the air, and snow on the landscape, the dark twigs of these bare elm trees change colour. It is the purple flower clusters that are flung out from opening buds in late March. It takes sharp eyes to see the cause of the wine-coloured flush in the tree top. With the opening of the leafy shoots in April, the trees get an added colour from the pale green seed discs that replace the flowers. These are winged, and they soon turn brown, and fly away on the first breeze. This is the elm’s way of sowing seeds. A crop of young elms grows each summer in fields and gardens near these seed trees. The leaf of the seedling is exactly after the pattern of the parental tree, but smaller.

The English elm is less graceful than our American tree. It has more the stature of the white oak. The head is compact, and the foliage mass thicker, and longer-lived. The robin red-breast nests close to the sturdy trunk, shielded by the earliest leaves.

An old couplet guides the farmer in the old country:

“When the elm leaf is as big as a mouse’s ear, Then to sow barley never fear.”

The toughness of elm is remembered by all who have “read of the wonderful one-hoss shay.” Nothing but “ellum” was proper stuff for the hubs, you know. As it is durable in soil, elm is good timber for posts and railroad ties. By its toughness and flexibility, it is fit for waggon tongues, and all kinds of agricultural implements. The ancient warrior of England was likely to carry a longbow made of the tough British elm.

Slippery elms grow more irregular in form than the American, and are usually smaller trees. Both kinds grow together in the wooded regions east of the Rocky Mountains. The difference between them can be easily detected by a blind person. Twigs, buds, and leaves of slippery elms are made rough and harsh to the touch by coarse, reddish hairs.

Boys and many other people like the taste of the glutinous inner bark of this tree when the sap is running, and the limbs and trunks peel easily. Many a tree is sacrificed to this appetite. The same delectable mucilaginous substance quenches the thirst and allays hunger,—so hunters say, who have eaten it when lost in the woods, and threatened with starvation. Poultices of it relieve throat troubles, when there is congestion. It is a home remedy for inflammations and fevers. Dried and ground, the rich cambium is mixed with milk, and forms a nutritious and tasty food for invalids. It is a staple on the shelves of apothecary shops.

The rock elm might be mistaken for a bur oak were the leaves not decided proof that it is an elm. The limbs are shaggy, and the twigs winged by the corky bark. Indeed, another name for the tree is the cork elm. The framework of this tree is stiff and irregular, a decided contrast to the graceful drooping top of the American elm, whose symmetry is one of its best points.

The wood has its fibres so interlaced that no wood excels it in toughness and springiness. It is the wheelwright’s choice. It makes the finest bridge timbers, and the best axe handles, and wheel hubs.

The winged elm is the smallest and daintiest of the elms. The twigs are broadened by a corky ridge on each side. This gives the tree its name. The Indian name, Wahoo, is also heard in the South. The leaves are of the elm type, but unusually small.

It is seen as a street and lawn tree in cities and towns south of Virginia, and west to Illinois and Texas.

THE MAPLE FAMILY