40 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
periments have proved that seeds can live for thirty 
years, and everyone has heard stories of grain found in 
the Egyptian pyramids and sprouting after some thou- 
sands of years. There is a little difficulty about these 
stories, for the details of the experiments are hard to get, 
and the doubt always remains as to whether the corn 
may not have been blown in by the wind and recently 
deposited. However, the fact of the dormant life persist- 
ing for at least thirty years is fairly proved, and that 
is itself sufficiently wonderful. 
An experiment which you may try yourselves is to 
plant in good soil the foreign seeds which are taken from 
imported wheat, for instance, from India. You will be 
quite astonished at the proportion that survive the voyage 
and the sudden change of climate, and start on business 
after, perhaps, a whole year’s inactivity. 
Upon this vitality depends the third great advantage 
of the seed method, and that is the distance to which 
a plant may spread its race. Moreover, there is this to 
be considered, that-a plant, by sending its seeds to some 
distance, can get rid of their competition with itself, for 
the food there may be in the immediate neighbourhood of 
its roots. When, in later chapters, we go through the 
chief types of the plant world, we shall meet with various 
devices for spreading the seed, but we may now glance at 
some of them under the heads of the agencies employed. 
Many plants devote themselves to putting out their 
family in good places by means of an explosive seed- 
vessel. The “fruits,” that is to say, the seed-vessels, grow 
dry and brittle. A little touch, say a drop of rain, or the 
rustling of the wind, makes a small rent, and the case 
flies all to pieces like a Prince Rupert’s Drop, jerking the 
seeds out far and wide. One of the best illustrations of 
