394 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



to. But if peradventure you chance to brush up against the plant 

 accidentally, or you irritate it of set purpose with your foot or 

 your cane, then, as Mr. Rider Haggard would say, "a strange 

 thing happens " : off jumps the little green fruit with a startling 

 bounce, and scatters its juice and pulp and seeds explosively 

 through a hole in the end where the stem joined on to it. The 

 entire central part of the cucumber, in short (answering to the 

 seeds and pulp of a ripe melon), squirt out elastically through the 

 breach in the outer wall, leaving the hollow shell behind as a 

 mere empty windbag. 



Naturally, the squirting cucumber knows its own business best, 

 and is not without sufficient reasons of its own for this strange 

 and, to some extent, unmannerly behavior. By its queer trick of 

 squirting, it manages to kill at least two birds with one stone. 

 For, in the first place, the sudden elastic jump of the fruit fright- 

 ens away browsing animals, such as goats and cattle. Those 

 meditative ruminants are little accustomed to finding shrubs or 

 plants take the aggressive against them; and when they see a 

 fruit that quite literally flies in their faces of its own accord, they 

 hesitate to attack the uncanny vine which bristles with such magi- 

 cal and almost miraculous defenses. Moreover, the juice of the 

 squirting cucumber is bitter and nauseous, and if it gets into the 

 eyes or nostrils of man or beast, it impresses itself on the memory 

 by stinging like red pepper. So the trick of squirting serves in a 

 double way as a protection to the plant against the attacks of her- 

 bivorous animals and other enemies. 



But that's not all. Even when no enemy is near, the ripe fruits 

 at last drop off of themselves, and scatter their seeds elastically in 

 every direction. This they do simpty in order to disseminate their 

 kind in new and unoccupied spots, where the seedlings will root 

 and find an opening in life for themselves. Observe, indeed, that 

 the very word " disseminate " implies a general vague recognition 

 of this principle of plant-life on the part of humanity. It means, 

 etymologically, to scatter seed ; and it points to the fact that every- 

 where in nature seeds are scattered broadcast, infinite pains being 

 taken by the mother-plant for their general diffusion over wide 

 areas of woodland, plain, or prairie. 



Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, familiar 

 to everybody, but far commoner in the world at large than the 

 inhabitants of towns are at all aware of : I mean the winged seeds 

 that fly about freely in the air by means of feathery hairs or gos- 

 samer, like thistledown and dandelion. Of these winged types we 

 have many hundred varieties in England alone. All the willow- 

 herbs, for example, have such feathery seeds (or rather fruits) to 

 help them on their way through life ; and one kind, the beautiful 

 pink rose-bay, flies about so readily, and over such wide spaces of 



