104 THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 



or prickly pods. Nature is very fond of this grapnel method 

 of seed distribution. She may employ simple spines as in 

 cockle bur, or hooks as in burdock, or spines with retrorse 

 teeth as in beggar ticks. TJie object is the same in all cases; 

 viz : to make animals and man the agents in scattering the off- 

 spring. It is too late, now, in most cases to observe the me- 

 chanical means of propulsion employed by wild geranium, 

 wood sorrel, violet, etc. It may be, however, that a branch 

 of witch hazel (Oct. 30th) in flower, if taken home may some 

 night surprise the collector by an unwarrantable artillery dis- 

 charge. The shinning seeds are forcibly expelled from the 

 w^oody capsules. We have often tried to analyze — it is too 

 subtile a sentiment to catch — the peculiar feeling induced by 

 the spider-like yellow flowers of this witch hazel or Hamame- 

 lis. Why should it bloom so late, even after its own foliage 

 can no longer give it countenance. 



Sometimes one sees, brought from the West Indies, the 

 so-called "sand box." This is a woody capsule, in which the 

 tension is so great, that when relaxed the seeds are sent in a 

 noisy bombardment to a long distance. Who could fill that 

 box — repack it again ? "Where is that Promethean heat which 

 could its light relume?" 



We cannot, in so brief an article by any means exhaust 

 the list of ways in which seeds are dispersed. Many fruits, by 

 their colors are attractive to animals. Their pulp may be eaten 

 and the seeds rejected. Then, as every one knows, birds make 

 a tremendous scattering when they alight on a thistle top or a 

 sumac. Nature's political economy is not always to be seen of 

 men. Water is an agent in transferring many seeds and fruits 

 which by special levity or by contrivances adapted to the pur- 

 pose, float on stream river or ocean. There is no more fas- 

 cinating study than is afforded by this branch of ecology. 



Providence^ R. I. 



