DRY FRUITS 



large, rough pods in late autumn are packed with 

 flattened brown seeds which overlap each other 

 like the shingles on a roof. As they lie in a 

 carefully opened pod they make a most exquisite 

 picture. Each seed has a tuft of long, silky 

 hairs on the inner end, and in drying these 

 bristle out, spread, and, caught by a passing 

 breeze — away, away, and away they go, catch 

 them who can. At last they drop, and the race 

 is over. 



The Wild Clematis of the fields clambering 

 over fence and shrub provides its ripening seeds 

 with travelling plumes. After the corollas fall 

 and the ovaries are maturing the styles begin to 

 grow, lengthen an inch or more, become hairy, 

 and in place of the exquisite white flower clus- 

 ters of midsummer appear the beautiful grayish- 

 white tufts of seeds which in time are whisked 

 aw^ay by the wind, and each akene is given a 

 spiral twist as its little white plume curls it 

 away. Whenever a seed of any kind is found 

 to possess a plumose attachment it means its 

 distribution by the aid of the wind. 



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