"They are too high for that, dear," was the reply, "and these blossoms--for that is what they really are, although nothing more than fringes and catkins--are much prettier massed on the trees than they would be if gathered. The still-bare twigs and branches seem, as you see, to be draped with golden and rose-colored veils, but there will be no leaves until these queer flowers have dropped. If we look closely at the twigs and branches, we shall see that they are glossy and polished, as though they had been varnished and then brightened with color by the painter's brush. It is the flowing of the sap that does this. The swelling of the bark occasioned by the flow of sap gives the whole mass a livelier hue; hence the ashen green of the poplar, the golden green of the willow and the dark crimson of the peach tree, the wild rose and the red osier are perceptibly heightened by the first warm days of spring." [Illustration: MALE CATKIN OF WILLOW.] "Miss Harson," asked Clara, with a perplexed face, "what are catkins?" "Here," said her governess, reaching from the top bar of the road-fence for the lowest branch of a willow tree; "examine this catkin for yourself, and I will tell you what my _Botany_ says of it: 'An ament, or catkin, is an assemblage of flowers composed of scales and stamens or pistils arranged along a common thread-like receptacle, as in the chestnut and willow. It is a kind of calyx, by some classed as a mode of inflorescence (or flowering), and each chaffy scale protects one or more of the stamens or pistils, the whole forming one aggregate flower. The ament is common to forest-trees, as the oak and chestnut, and is also found upon the willow and poplar.'" "It's funny-looking," said Malcolm, when he had made himself thoroughly acquainted with the appearance of the catkin, "but it doesn't look much like a flower: it looks more like a pussy's tail." "Yes, and that is the origin of its name. 'Catkin' is diminutive for 'cat;' so this collection of flowers is called 'catkin,' or 'little cat.'" "I think I'll call them 'pussy-tails,'" said Edith. "There is a great deal to be learned about trees," said Miss Harson, when all were comfortably seated in the pleasant schoolroom; "and, besides the natural history of their species, some old trees have wonderful stories connected with them, while many in tropical countries are so wonderful in themselves that they do not need stories to make them interesting. The common trees around us will be our subjects at first; for I suppose that you can scarcely tell a willow from a poplar, or a chestnut tree from either, can you?" "I can tell a chestnut tree," said Malcolm, confidently. "When it is not the season for nuts?" asked his governess, smiling. There was not a very positive reply to this; and Miss Harson continued: