Bot. Also 6 catteken, catken, 8–9 katkin. [Taken by Lyte from Du. katteken ‘kitten’ and ‘catkin’ of hazel, willow, etc. (in Dodoens), dim. of katte cat. The 16th c. L. catulus, F. chaton (f. chat), and Ger. kätzchen, have the same two senses; the catkin being named from its soft downy appearance: cf. CATLING 4.]
A unisexual inflorescence, consisting of rows of apetalous flowers ranged in circles along a slender stalk; the whole forming a cylindrical, downy-looking, and generally pendant part, which falls off in a single piece after flowering or ripening; as in the willow, birch, poplar, pine, hazel, etc.; a deciduous spike; an amentum. (Called by Turner 1568 tagge, and by various 16–17th-c. writers aglet.)
1578. Lyte, Dodoens, VI. lviii. 733. Leaues spring foorth after the Catkins, agglettes, or blowinges. Ibid., lxvii. 743. Withy … his flower or blossom is lyke a fine throm or thicke set veluet heaped vp togither about a little stemme, the which when it openeth is soft in handling, and lyke downe or Cotton, and therefore the whole flower is called a Chatton, Kitekin or Catteken.
1611. Cotgr., Chattons.… The Catkins, Cattails, aglet-like blowings, or bloomings, of nut-trees, &c.
1731–7. Miller, Gard. Dict. (J.). The Pine Tree…. It hath amentaceous Flowers (or Catkins).
1821. Clare, Vill. Minstr., II. 131. Golden catkins deck the sallow tree.
1860. Gosse, Rom. Nat. Hist., 6. The willows on the river margin are gay with their pendant catkins, to whose attractions hundreds of humming bees resort.
Hence Catkined ppl. a.
1866. Geo. Eliot, F. Holt, 2. The bushy hedgerows … shrouded the grassy borders … with catkined hazels.
1869. Ruskin, Q. of Air, § 78. Catkined trees, whose blossoms are only tufts and dust.
