THE NOVEMBER WOODS 



221 



•could have passed them by so many 

 times during the season without notic- 

 ing them. 



The dissemination of seeds by the 

 various plants is most remarkable, and 

 we now find opportunity for a close 

 inspection of several of them. The 

 •curiously-constructed pods of the milk- 

 weed are just bursting open, disclos- 

 ing a compact array of flattened, 

 roundish seeds, each with a tuft of 



dreds of feet before descending to 

 find a bed among the leaves, to await 

 the coming of the spring for their 

 transformation. The cat-tails, too, are 

 scattering their seeds to the winds, and 

 a bed of them at this season looks odd 

 enough with the hitherto stiff, brown 

 blossom-heads now bursting open in- 

 to a feathery mass, and each one fur- 

 nishing literally thousands of the tiny 

 seed parachutes. As we toss a hand- 



"NOW IS THE TIME TO GATHER THE TRAILING EVERGREEN." 

 Ground pine and two varieties of club moss. 



white, silky hairs an inch or more in 

 length attached to its smaller end. They 

 open rapidly in the sunshine and al- 

 most before we realize what is hap- 

 pening the entire pod becomes trans- 

 formed into a mass of fluffy, silken 

 whiteness, waving in the breeze. 

 There seem to be hundreds of the 

 seeds in a single pod, and each one 

 now assumes a globular shape as the 

 many hairs open out, forming a most 

 excellent support for the brown seed 

 in the center, as one by one they are 

 carried away by the wind. They are 

 exquisite little airships, and what a 

 delight to watch them float along — 

 some going but a few yards to be 

 caught on other weeds, others mount- 

 ing up, up. till they are beyond the 

 tree-tops and are carried many hun- 



ful into the air it is like a veritable 

 snowstorm and we wonder what be- 

 comes of them all. 



We have but to examine our coats 

 to find that we too have been uncon- 

 sciously aiding in this wonderful seed 

 distribution, and have been transport- 

 ing some of the tiny, feathered aster 

 seeds, or the more persistent pronged 

 seeds of the begger ticks and burdock, 

 - — and if we wish to witness a genuine 

 bombardment, let us gather some of 

 last year's nuts of the witch hazel and 

 take them home. At the proper time 

 when they are sufficiently dried and 

 ripe, there will be a sudden explosion, 

 and the seeds within will be hurled 

 for several yards across the room. 



These and other things of interest 

 may we find if we search the Novem- 



