When the little clusters of ash flowers first show in the springtime they are black, and the tree seems to have black-tipped branches. Soon the black tips develop into dark green fringes, though these are not airy and light, like the maple and elm fringes. The best way for you to find out just how ash blossoms look is—but you know perfectly well what is the very best way to find out, and I hope you will take care to do it. Ash seeds are winged like those of the maples and are called samaras, but they do not grow two together. Ash trees often bear great numbers of samaras, more than any other tree. Where ash trees grow near houses, the samaras often fall on the roofs and fill up the gutters, so that they have to be cleaned out, sometimes more than once in a season. [Illustration: Ash samaras.] The wood of the ash is so very tough and elastic that from all time it has been used to make bows and spear shafts. Of course it is also valuable for less warlike uses. When you read the “One Hoss Shay,” you will find one use to which ash wood is sometimes put. The ash tree used to be held sacred by the ancient Norsemen, and some day you will read beautiful stories about the wonderful ash Ygdrasil. The small tree we call “mountain ash” is not an ash at all, and it has, as you know, red berries instead of samaras. PINES. Pine trees bear cones, and cones do not fly. But if you examine the scales of the cones, you will find a winged seed under each. When the cones are ripe the scales open and the seeds drop out and are caught by the wind and floated away. [Illustration] There are a great many species of pine trees. The seeds of some are large and sweet and are sold as pine nuts. These trees do not grow in this country, however, and we should have to go to South America, or to Asia, or western Europe to find pine trees from which we could gather nuts. [Illustration] Squirrels gather nuts from all the pine trees, however, for they are not as particular as we, and think them all good. They are very clever at gathering cones, gnawing off the scales and getting out the seeds. Pine trees, like the maples and elms, have two kinds of—not exactly flowers, but something answering to them. The ovules, or young seeds, are borne under the scales of the cones, and the stamens are in catkins. Sometimes these catkins are very large, and they bear a great deal of pollen which the wind carries to the cones. A pine forest is always a sweet and delightful place. When the sun shines on the trees they fill the air with fragrance. Pine trees used to grow all over the northern part of the United States, but they make very valuable timber, and so have been carelessly cut down and the forests destroyed, until now in many places there are almost no pine trees left.