HIDE AND SEEK. 



109 



enough to strike passers-by violently with its ex- 

 pelled seeds. Our Common Balsam {Impatiens-noli- 

 me-tangere) scatters its seeds in a similar manner; 

 and those grown so commonly in cottage gardens 

 perhaps owe their cultivation to the love of their 

 owners for a bit of harmless practical joking — which 

 consists in getting an uninitiated person to just 

 touch the ripe fruits, and his sudden startle upon 

 the thing's "going off" is a sufficient reward! On 

 a very hot day in summer, where the Gorse-bushes 

 abound, we hear quite a fusillade, caused by the ripe 

 pods suddenly opejiing and expelling the seeds. 

 Dr. Cooke mentions certain kinds of fungi which 

 eject their spores by similar methods. 



But the wind, all the world over, in spite of its pro- 

 verbial fickleness, is largely depended upon for the dis- 

 semination of many kinds of seeds, just as we have 

 seen it is utilised for cross -fertilising many kinds 

 of flowers adapted for that purpose. The special- 

 isation of seeds for wind -dissemination is often a 

 very elaborate matter. One particular order of 

 plants seems to have laid itself out for wind agency 

 to distribute its seeds — the Compositce. How suc- 

 cessfully the trick has answered is seen in the 

 cosmopolitan distribution of the members of this 

 order, the fact that it stands at the head of all others 

 in numbers both of species and individuals, and the 

 marvellous manner with which its members have 

 adapted themselves to almost any physical condition 



