SEED TRAMPS 153 



are at least a half-dozen different countenances to be 

 found among them, and a little study will soon enable 

 us to assort the several distinct types. I will not at- 

 tempt to; they are all sinners, and mostly black sheep 

 from promising and comely ancestors. 



In the botany this group may be found under the 

 title Desmodium, a name derived from a Greek word 

 meaning a bond or chain, the seeds being arranged in 

 links, as it were, each a tiny pod covered with minute 

 hooks and containing a single seed. I have shown here 

 four distinct forms of the pods, from either of which a 

 botanist could readily bring to mind the pretty pink 

 parent pea-blossomed flower of the woods. The low- 

 est of them, rounded above and below, is the Desnw- 

 dium Canadense. The jointed pair above, D. pnnicula- 

 tum, the single triangle, D. nudiflorum, and the upper 

 trio, D. accuininatum. Turning our attention to the 

 " pitchforks," Bidens (two- teethed), we have also a va- 

 riety of styles, from the four-tined Bidens cernua at the 

 right to the B. frondosa near it, and the slender Span- 

 ish-needle above, B. bipinnata, the three -pronged indi- 

 vidual on the left being the seed of B. connata. Each 

 of these groups belongs to an individual family the 

 first to the Bean family, the second to the Composite. 



One of the most persistent and tenacious of all these 

 wild " beggars" is shown in the upper part of the group. 

 As we pick him out of the puckers he has gathered 

 about himself in our garments he appears less than a 

 fifth of an inch in diameter, unless, indeed, he has mul- 

 tiplied himself into four smaller sections, an odd trick 

 which he generally resorts to. One of these sad -iron- 

 shaped pieces is shown below. It is armed, not with 

 hooks like the many clinging seeds, but with veritable 



