SEED DISPERSAL 251 



to the ground, and perchance finds a fit place to 

 germinate. 



Many of the devices of mechanics have been 

 anticipated by plants in their efforts to spread 

 their seeds. The dandelion and many of its 

 relatives have invented the parachute, perfect in 

 form, efficient in performance, and by means of 

 it sail their seeds down the wind in the search for 

 new grounds to occupy. Maple, ash, and lime have 

 devised divers shaped aeroplanes by which their 

 seeds are carried, even in still weather, well beyond 

 the shade of the tree that bore them. In the 

 tension produced in the drying pod of broom or 

 furze, and many others of their order, there is a 

 catapult which pitches seeds many yards from the 

 plant on which they grew. Some plants, like the 

 wall toad-flax, have actually evolved methods of 

 planting their own seeds. When the seeds are 

 ripe the fruit stalk moves away from the light, 

 and in this way searches out the shady crevices 

 in walls and rocks, there depositing the seeds in 

 the position best suited for their germination. And 

 so one might go on enumerating devices through 

 many pages. 



But when everything has been said about the 

 " cleverness " of plants in providing for the 

 placing of their children in the world, the fact 

 remains that they put their chief dependence on 

 prodigality. Seeds are produced in boundless pro- 

 fusion in order that, peradventure, one may survive. 

 In a season like the present, which has been as 

 favourable to wild fruits as it has been unfavourable 

 to those of the garden, some aspects of this sub- 



