io8 SAGACITY AND MORALITY OF PLANTS. 



and seeds, which are brought over to this country 



and France, in the foreign fleeces imported by wool 



merchants. In some of the Gloucestershire valleys, 



where foreign wool is washed and worked, we find 



plants from the Cape or South America germinating 



and sometimes flowering, the seeds having been brought 



over in the wool. Most of them are hooked, and some 



very formidably, such as Xanthiicm stnimaritim and 



X. spinosum, Martynia, etc. At Montpellier, in France, 



numerous seeds brought over in fleeces from Buenos 



Ayres and Mexico have sprung up, insomuch that 



botanists have been enabled so far to study the flora of 



those countries, thus imported in an unexpected but 



effective way into Europe across the Atlantic. In 



Africa and Madagascar we have plants whose fruits 



are so well fitted for this kind of conveyance that 



they go ty the name of " grapnel plants " {Harpa- 



gophytiim) ; and in South America the Proboscidea 



jussiein affords perhaps the best example of such a 



kind of fruit-mechanism in the New World. 



A few species of plants, not confined to any 

 particular order, have invented another scheme for 

 dissemination, which may be called "mechanical." 

 One of the most remarkable of these is the well- 

 known " Squirting Cucumber " {Momordica elatermm), 

 whose ripened carpels have to be held together by 

 copper wire if it is desired to keep them together. 

 Dr. M. C. Cooke mentions the North American 

 Witch Hazel {Hammelis virginicd) as being elastic 



