THE FRUIT AND SEED-DISPERSAL 



327 



fruit-coat (pericarp), with air-spaces. Their large fruits can thus 

 be easily floated away as they drop, by a stream or by tides. But 



Fig. 249. 

 Samara, or winged fruit of Sycamore, dividing into two. 



(After Figuier.) 



extreme cases are seen in Nipa, Cocos, and Lodoicea, all of them littoral 

 and estuarine Palms. Their fruits have fibrous husks with air- 

 chambers, and this serves to float them. Each contains a single 



Fig. 250. 



Fruiting annual plants of Salsola, caught at a wire fence, as they were rolled by 

 wind over level sand, on the coast near Adelaide, Australia. 



seed. Those of Lodoicea, the Double Coconut of the Seychelles, are 

 the largest known. They may be carried long distances by ocean 

 currents. 



