196

Floral bracts or involucres of the dogwood 199

The red-bud in bloom 201

Blooms of the shad-bush 206

Flowers of the American linden 207

The American linden 209

Flowers of the black locust 211

Young trees of the black locust 212

The sycamore, or button-ball 215

Button-balls--fruit of the sycamore 217

The liquidambar 220

The leaves and fruit of the liquidambar 222

The papaw in bloom 226

Flowers of the papaw 227

The persimmon tree in fruiting time 231

Berries of the spice-bush 234

* * * * *

A Story of Some Maples

This is not a botanical disquisition; it is not a complete account of
all the members of the important tree family of maples. I am not a
botanist, nor a true scientific observer, but only a plain tree-lover,
and I have been watching some trees bloom and bud and grow and fruit for
a few years, using a camera now and then to record what I see--and much
more than I see, usually!

In the sweet springtime, when the rising of the sap incites some to
poetry, some to making maple sugar, and some to watching for the first
flowers, it is well to look at a few tree-blooms, and to consider the
possibilities and the pleasures of a peaceful hunt that can be made with
profit in city street or park, as well as along country roadsides and in
the meadows and the woods.

Who does not know of the maples that are all around us? Yet who has
seen the commonest of them bloom in very early spring, or watched the
course of the peculiar winged seed-pods or "keys" that follow the
flowers? The white or "silver" maple of streets or roadsides, the soft
maple of the woods, is one of the most familiar of American trees. Its
rapid and vigorous growth endears it to the man who is in a hurry for
shade, and its sturdy limbs are the joy of the tree-butcher who "trims"
them