When evergreen trees are mentioned, we may think of trees that have needles in the winter as well as in the summer. A family moving to a new home found several trees among the evergreens that appeared entirely dead. There were cones on the trees but all the needles had dropped off. It took only a few thrusts of a sharp axe into a tree to show it was green and very much alive. When spring came new needles grew. When fall came, the needles dropped again. These were lareh trees. It is their nature to shed their needles yearly.
We know the cones of the pine tree and the blue berries of the red cedar (juniper), but have you seen the fruit of the yew? It is a fleshy berry-like fruit much larger than on the cedar, bright scarlet in color. One can see the dark seed in the fleshy cup or collar. We can lift the branches in late autumn and by observing the well-formed buds be able to tell which plants will have the pollen next spring and which the scarlet fruit next fall. The globular buds are on the staininate, or pollen-bearing plants. The conical flower buds are on the pistillate, or seed-bearing plants.
Have you seen the swaying catkins on a walnut tree in the spring and wondered what they were? They carry the pollen necessary to fertilize the loose clusters of pistillate flowers found on the same tree where the nuts will develop.
Such gymnastics as regal and Formosa lily buds perform to reach the seed pod stage! When buds first appear they are vertical. As they continue to grow they turn downward until they are almost upside down. With the opening of the blossoms they assume a more horizontal position. As the seed pods swell and mature they are held up in the same vertical position as the buds when they first appeared.
Most flower spikes open the lowest blossoms first and work toward the top. Liatris starts at the top and opens downward. Penstemons have the delightful habit of opening a few blossoms in each of a number of clusters and thus it appears that more of the flower stem is in full bloom for a longer time.
Have you ever looked into the very heart of a violet plant, down under its leaves, in late summer and early fall and found pods full of seeds? These are called cleistogamous and were not formed in the usual way by buds that opened into flowers pollinated by the bees. They developed from enclosed flowers which were able to self pollinate.
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