ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 4 oi 



hand quotations from the strange stories of modern scientific 

 Munchausens. 



Still higher in the evolutionary scale than the elastic fruits 

 are those airy species which have taken to themselves wings like 

 the eagle, and soar forth upon the free breeze in search of what 

 the Americans describe as " fresh locations." Of this class, the 

 simplest type may be seen in those forest trees, like the maple and 

 the sycamore, whose fruits are flattened out into long expansions 

 or parachutes, technically known as " keys," by whose aid they 

 flutter down obliquely to the ground at a considerable distance. 

 The keys of the sycamore, to take a single instance, when 

 detached from the tree in autumn, fall spirally through the air, 

 owing to the twist of the winged arm, and are carried so far that, 

 as every gardener knows, young sycamore trees rank among the 

 commonest weeds among our plots and flower-beds. A curious 

 variant upon this type is presented by the lime, or linden, whose 

 fruits are in themselves small, wingless nuts ; but they are borne 

 in clusters upon a common stalk, which is winged on either side 

 by a large membranous bract. When the nuts are ripe, the whole 

 cluster detaches itself in a body from the branch, and flutters away 

 before the breeze by means of the common parachute, to some spot 

 a hundred yards off or more, where the wind chances to land it. 



The topmost place of all in the hierarchy of seed life, it seems 

 to me, is taken by the feathery fruits and seeds which float freely 

 hither and thither wherever the wind may bear them. An 

 immense number of the very highest plants the aristocrats of 

 the vegetable kingdom, such as the lordly composites, those ulti- 

 mate products of plant evolution possess such floating feathery 

 seeds ; though here, again, the varieties of detail are too infinite 

 for rapid or popular classification. Indeed, among the composites 

 alone the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy fruits I can 

 reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct variations of 

 plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts of 

 Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful : I will let the public 

 off a hundred and forty-eight of them. My two exceptions shall 

 be John-go-to-bed-at-noon and the hairy hawkweed, both of them 

 common English meadow-plants. The first, and more quaintly 

 named, of the two has little ribbed fruits that end in a long and 

 narrow beak, supporting a radial rib-work of spokes like the 

 frame of an umbrella; and from rib to rib of this framework 

 stretch feathery cross-pieces, continuous all round, so as to make 

 of the whole mechanism a perfect circular parachute, resembling 

 somewhat the web of a geometrical spider. But the hairy hawk- 

 weed is still more cunning in its generation ; for that clever and 

 cautious weed produces its seeds or fruits in clustered heads, of 

 which the central ones are winged, while the outer are heavy, 



vol. sxxix. 28 



