GO 



BOTANY 



Winged Seeds. — The seeds of the pine, held underneath the 

 scales of the cone, are prolonged into wings, which aid in their 

 dispersal. 



Tumble Weeds. — Sometimes whole plants are carried by the 

 high winds of the fall. This is effected in the plants called tumble 



weeds, in which the plant 

 body, as it dries, assumes a 

 somewhat spherical shape. 

 The main stalk breaks off and 

 the plant may then be blown 

 along the ground, scattering 

 seeds as it goes, until it is ulti- 

 mately stopped by a fence or 

 bush. A single plant of Rus- 

 sian thistle may thus scatter 

 over two hundred thousand 

 seeds. 



Seeds or fruits (for exam- 

 ple, the cocoanut) may fall 

 into the water and be carried 

 thousands of miles to their new resting-place, the fibrous husk 

 providing a boat in which the seed is carried. The great Eng- 

 lish naturalist, Charles Darwin, raised eighty-two plants from 

 seeds carried in a ball of earth attached to the foot of a bird. 

 It is probable that by means of birds and water most of the 

 vegetation has come into existence on the newly 

 formed coral islands of the Pacific Ocean. 



Some seeds have especial adaptations in the way 

 of spines or projections. Insects make use of these 

 projections in order to carry them away. 



Ants plant seeds which they have carried to their 

 nests for a food supply. Nuts are planted in much 

 the same manner by squirrels. 



Explosive Fruits. — Some fruits scatter their seeds 

 through the explosion of the seed case. Such a fruit 

 is the witch-hazel, which explodes with such force that the seeds 

 are thrown several feet. The wild geranium, a five-loculed cap- 



Cross section of a cocoanut in its fibrous husk. 



Pod of crane's 

 bill discharg- 

 ing its seed. 



