SELF-SOWING 83 
and crevices of the wall upon which it is growing, 
although it does not anchor them. It has long flowering 
shoots, and the fruits are borne upon slender stalks: 
after the blossom has fallen the stalk curves away from 
the light and towards the wall, and as it lengthens it 
pushes the fruit into any hole or cranny that happens 
to be available. When the latter is quite ripe it 
opens by pores and the 
seeds are shed. It is worth 
notice that the fruit is one 
of those that only open in 
dry weather and close up 
again when wetted. Of 
course the seeds are not 
all shed into holes, for 
they may be and often 

Fic. 27.—Fruit of the Ivy- Fic. 28.—Seed of the Abs leaved 
leaved Toadflax. After de- Toadflax. x 2 
hiscence. x 4. 
are merely dropped on to the top of the wall, and 
if the long stem be hanging down its side many 
of them simply fall to the ground at its foot. I 
have seen them carried off by black ants, but what 
I want to point out is, not their dispersal modes, but 
the fact that the plant itself sows some of them in 
places that are suitable for germination, for the holes 
and the cracks in a wall are not anything like so dry 
as one might think; they not only collect but they 
