Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 December 1891 — Sexes of Trees. [ARTICLE]

Sexes of Trees.

As a general rule the sexes of both our forest and cultivated trees are only to be determined when the trims are in bloom for tho pistillate and staminate flowers are produced i-ithor in the same cluster, raceme, bunch or only separate on the same twig or bunch, while in the wildcherries, apples, papaw and similar fruit tho organs of both sexes are to bo found in each individual flower. The long catkins of tho chestnut, oak, hickory and butter-nut are tho staminato (male) flowers, while the pistillate are small and quite inconspicuous, always situated at the apex of tho embryo nut. In the common red, white and sugar maples both sexes uro in the same crowded umbel-like cluster, inconspicuous at first, but soon the pistillate flowers enlarge and become a two-winged fruit or seed. But in the box-elder or negtindo maple we have a very different arrangement, for the two sexes are not only in separate flowers, but on different trees, and for this<renson the species is said to be dioecious--that is, stamens and pistils in separate flowers on different plants. In tho neguudo mnplo the staminate flowers uro in small clustered pdflicets, while the pistillate are in long drooping racemes and the two sexes on different trees. Those bearing seeds are of course pistillate (female), but there is no way of distinguishing the sexes of the trees except when iu bloom orbearing seed, —[New York Tribune.