SEED - SCATTERING 



air, as every country schoolboy knows well, it sinks 

 slowly down with a beautiful twisting motion at 

 some distance from where we are standing. So, 

 when this fruit is torn from the tree by the wind, the 

 parachute not only acts in a general way like a float, 

 giving the wind time to get a grip of it and whirl 

 it away, but it causes that peculiar twisting fall that 

 even on a quiet day carries it far beyond the tree's 

 shadow. This is all to the good for the seedling. 



One of the most effective kinds of scattering is 

 that which seems at first glance to be least pro- 

 pitious that the fruit should be eaten. What 

 seems, for a moment, like a full stop, works well 

 when it works at all, namely, in cases where the 

 seeds are not digested. Juicy fruits are eaten by 

 many birds and by a few mammals ; they are 

 eaten for their own sake, and the hard envelopes of 

 the seeds in the case of berries, the hard stones of 

 the fruit in the case of drupes, save the seed from 

 being digested. It is passed out from the food-canal 

 none the worse, in some cases probably the better, 

 often, naturally enough, far from the place where 

 the fruit was eaten. In this way we can understand 

 the occurrence of an isolated gooseberry bush or 

 fruit-tree far from any human dwelling. 



Some of the modes of scattering are peculiar and 

 rare. Thus the squirrel may forget some of his 

 hidden stores of beech-nuts, and germination may 

 take place. There is evidence, too, that earth- 

 worms occasionally plant trees. In certain cases 

 the fruit or the seed has some peculiarity which 

 assists lodgment in the soil ; thus a long bristle or 



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