The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1906-01-21
The Flowers and Fruit of Our Forest Trees
BY HARRIET L. KELLER.

That all forest trees bear flowers is
fact often challenged. The reason for
this iucredulity is largely negative; the
1Djec-or says, Il never saw any flow
ers." and that is supposed to settle the
matter. Clearly, the logic of the Objec-
ton is weak; but the impression upon
me mind Of the Objector is strong. I
have of en- thought it would be inter-
tsting to take a poll of all the farmers
of 2 given district who ever saw a
beech tree in blossom. In that district
there may be hundreds of beech trees,
each bearing every year its generous
burden of nuts to the joy and delight
OF the squirrel, the mouse and the chip
munk; and yet the owners of these
trees may never have caught them in
the act of putting forth their tiny
globes Of fairy flowers.
The red and silver naples flaunt their
blossoms so defantly in the face of
March, so color and dominate the tints
of the April woods, that they, perforce.
are accepted as Towering trees. But
the brown bells Of the elm swing from
its topmost branches in March and
April and nobody knows save he who
has eyes to see. In April the poplars
deposit their wOrmlike catkins upon
the ground, with the air of having per-
formed the whole duty Of a poplar.
w lCu We CIuSL lAlCSC CellA1llS vi the
sidewalk OF our city streets we wonder
where in the world they came from.
Among well known trees whose bios
SONS appear before the leaves, are the
red and silver NAPLES, the elms. the
poplars, the birChes and the willows.
Among those whose blossoms appear
with the leaves, and so are lost in the
general Outburst of vegetable life, are
the beech. the pawpaW. the oaks the
hornbeams. the walnuts and the ashes.
A few bear conspicuous f1OWers-the
tulip tree, the lOcusts. the magnolias.
As a rule, however, the individual
blossoms of northern forest trees are
small; as a rule, they appear early in
the season, long before the layman is
expecting to see flowers. and so he
misses them. Thoreau used to say that
he must always have the flower in his
mind before he went out to find it;
otherwise he failed Perhaps the rea-
son why we miss the flowers Of spring
which are about us in millions, is be-
cause we do not have them in mind:
We are not expecting to see them; we
have never made their acquaintance
and so fail to recognize them.
The same thing is true of the fruits
of our forest trees. A fruit, to the pop
ular mind is edible; but fruit as the
botanist uses the word. is the mature
seed which contains the embryo Of an
other plant. In this. sense all forest
trees bear fruit. The fruit OF our com
mon white elm natures and falls iust
as the leaves are appearing. That of
the red maple covers the tree with a
crimson cloak before the leaves come
cut and Tipen in June.
Most of the fruits of forest trees fall
naturally into one of three groups. The
first group Is characterized by a wing
attachment. The box elder key is an
example Of this. The second is the
nut group, of which the acorn and the
walnut are representatives. The third
group is we'll represented by the cher
rieS and hawthOrns. The seed is en-
closed in Geshy mass which IL more
or less edible. Observation makes clear
that these peculi arities are simply de-
vices for the more perfect distribution
of the seeds. A seed of heavy weight
has little chance of getting far from
home unless it can borrow wings or legs
by making itself attractive to birds or
animals.
And if all the seeds of q tree SHOULD
terminate there would be little chance
for any Seeding under the parent
shade. Hence a tree has made a long
stem forward in the race for existence
when it IS able to e0uip it's seeds with
wings of their own which will hear
them bv the aid Of a favoring breeze
away from the parent hnUch Tt is this
that the elms. the maples and the ashes
have succeeded in doing.