SEED DISPERSAL OF PINUS SYLVESTKIS & BETULA ALBA 43 



ON THE SEED DISPERSAL OF 

 PINUS SYLVESTRIS AND BETULA ALBA. 



By ROBERT SMITH, B.Sc., University College, Dundee. 



ALTHOUGH much has been written on the subject of the 

 adaptations of plants for the dispersal of their seeds, there 

 is still a lack of precise information with regard to the 

 distance to which the seeds of even common species may 

 be carried by these means. Fliche, who may be regarded 

 as the chief contributor to this subject, has given x a series 

 of measurements which he made of the distances between 

 certain seedlings and their parent trees. His figures are 

 remarkably small ; thus the greatest distance to which the 

 seeds of Pinus sylvestris were carried was only 115 metres, 

 of Fagus sylvatica 500-600 metres, of Pyrus Aucuparia 

 1400-2100 metres. 



The importance of such measurements, with regard 

 to the determination of the time required for the migra- 

 tions of plants across a region, or to the study of the 

 comparative effectiveness of the various adaptations for 

 dispersal, will be sufficiently evident to any student of 

 these subjects. It is plain, however, that many more 

 examples from different regions would require to be studied 

 before the data could be safely utilised in forming any 

 generalisations. The scarcity of recorded examples may 

 probably be ascribed to the great difficulty experienced in 

 finding cases where seedlings can be with certainty traced 

 to their parent plants. 



A particularly favourable example has come under my 

 notice in the north-eastern part of the county of Fife, on 

 that stretch of fixed dunes known as Tentsmuir, between 

 Tayport and the mouth of the river Eden. The moor is 



1 Fliche, 'Un Reboisement' ( " Annales de la science agronomique," i., 1888). 



Detailed accounts of the distances to which seeds may be expelled from those 

 plants provided with mechanical devices for the purpose are given in works by 

 Lubbock, Kerner, etc. ; but, so far as I am aware, very few besides Fliche 

 have sought to ascertain the distances to which seeds are carried by other 

 than mechanical devices. Clement Reid, in his recently published work on 

 the " Origin of the British Flora" (1899), p. 28, describes an interesting case 

 of the dispersal of acorns by means of rooks, where the seedlings were found 

 more than a mile from the parent plants. 



