64 
come upon these golden blossoms when wandering 
through the fall woods. 
Often the shrub has lost all its leaves before these 
appear. You almost feel as if the yellow flowers had 
made a mistake, and had come out six months ahead 
of time, fancying it to be April instead of October. 
In each little cluster grow several blossoms, with flower 
leaves so long and narrow that they look like waving 
yellow ribbons. 
But to-day we wish chiefly to notice the fruit or nut 
of the witch-hazel. 
Now, the question is, how does the witch-hazel man- 
age to send the seeds which lie inside this nut out into 
the world? I think you will be surprised to learn just 
how it does this. 
If you have a nut before you, you see for your- 
selves that this fruit is not bright-colored and juicy- 
looking, or apparently good to eat, and thus likely to 
tempt either boy or bird to carry it off; you see that 
it is not covered with hooks that can lay hold of your 
clothing, and so steal a ride; and you see that it has 
no silky sails to float it through the air, nor any wings 
to carry it upon the wind. 
And so the witch-hazel, knowing that neither boy nor 
girl, nor bird nor beast nor wind, will come to the rescue 
of its little ones, is obliged to take matters into its own 
hands; and this is what it does. It forces open the 
ripe nut with such violence, that its little black seeds 
are sent rattling off into the air, and do not fall to the 
ground till they have traveled some distance from home. 
Really they are shot out into the world (Fig. 72). 
