WATER-BORNE SEEDS 35 



There were those of the oak, beech, hazel, alder, whole 

 navies of birch, willow, dock, stachys, angelica, knapweed, 

 spiraea, fruits of the rose and of many grasses, rushes, and 

 carices. 



The wavelets were lapping them to the shore, and 

 depositing them in little heaps in the broken-surfaced creeks 

 where " spates " and rains had undermined the turf. These 

 miniature landslips occur along the whole course of rivers, 

 and roughly in a line parallel to the normal water-edge. 

 This line is the verge of the more ordinary floods when the 

 stream is " bank full." Thrown into such surroundings, 

 numbers of seeds cannot fail to germinate whenever aerial 

 conditions are suitable. 



It is remarkable how many fruits or seeds of ordinary 

 riverside wild -flowers are buoyant, at least for a time. 

 Whin and broom drop at once to the bottom, where they 

 must rot, but the great majority are buoyed up from their 

 lightness, or by the assistance of wings or other appendages. 

 Such are the hazel-nut, the acorn, the beech-mast, cones, and 

 many a floating hull ; the fruits of knapweed, jerked out by 

 the wind, ride on the waves till landed in a fine seed-bed. 

 The willow seeds, and the myriads of birch fruits with their 

 outriggers, land high and dry on the beach. 



We have experimented, and found that very few of the 

 denizens of the banks have seeds heavier than their bulk of 

 water ; yet there are some singular exceptions, the most 

 notable of which, perhaps, is the toad-rush (Juncus bufonius). 

 These plants depend on currents of considerable force, such 

 as result from heavy rainfalls, for their distribution. 



It is not necessary to enter on the long array of plants 

 that leave their highland homes and establish themselves 

 along the margins of our rivers, because in many instances 

 the roots or whole plants have been torn up and conveyed 

 bodily to their lowland situations. Yet we must not omit 

 to mention these, because in not a few cases such herbs have 

 been brought down in the most rudimentary form in which 

 a plant can live. 



The presence of acres of lupines on the river-islands of 

 the Dee is a large-type lesson on this method. But numerous 

 other herbs owe their existence in unnatural situations to 



