Tree Love

Remember the red maples with the different types of flowers that I thought were two species? Roxie, who is very clever despite not being a trained botanist, had it right: those are male and female trees of the same species, Acer rubrum.

I knew that most angiosperms (flowering plants) included both male and female parts in every flower. These, I learn from Wikepedia, are called bisexual, hermaphroditic, or synoecious. Some plants like holly are dioecious, having separate male and female plants, but I didn't expect to find this somewhat exotic arrangement in the ordinary red maple.



The first picture shows male flowers with an anther at the end of each stamen (how about that? guys really do have all the anthers); the second shows female flowers with red pistils. The male flowers fall off, while the female ones become samaras, those little helicopter things we loved to play with as kids. (My brother and I used to put them on our noses and call ourselves Pinocchio.)

You never know what you'll learn while blogging about random subjects. Thanks to Alwen and Lisa for the technical terminology (dioecious would make a great Scrabble word, except for having nine letters; but you might get lucky and have us already on the board). And Roxie, of course, is clever about everything, including hats as well as trees. You should see what she wore to the Harlot's event in Portland.