16 THE VOICES OF FLOWERS. 



forms of sea-mosses, sponges, and lichens, and depart so widely 

 from the nature of plants that we leave them to be noticed 

 in other scientific works than those on botany. 



How have plants travelled from one region to another, espe 

 cially where their delicate forms have preceded man, and been 

 found growing on mountain-tops never before trodden by human 

 steps ? There is a natural tendency in flower-bearing plants 

 to diffuse themselves over the earth ; but this is effected chiefly 

 by means of the seeds, aided by the dust of flowers, called the 

 pollen. The history of the pollen is as full of mystery and 

 wonder as is the movement of a distant planet or satellite. 

 Every flower contains this dust, without which the plant 

 will fail to produce a healthful seed or fruit. In some the 

 pollen can be gathered upon the finger when introduced into 

 the open flower. In others it is so minute as to be invisible. 

 A greater contrast exists between the seeds, w^hich range 

 from five pounds, as in the cocoanut, to the dust-like form 

 of some varieties of the mushroom and the so called puff- 

 ball. When the latter bursts, the seeds escape in a small 

 cloud and are carried on the lightest breeze for many miles. 

 Other plants and lichens of the lowest order send forth par 

 ticles of seed-dust so small as to be invisible to the naked eye, 

 which, floating on the air, enter the smallest crack, and have 

 settled even in the lungs of birds and men and there made 

 for themselves a strange soil, to commence a growth which 

 has either been destroyed by some effort of nature or has 

 injured the texture of the lungs itself. A grain of fine dust- 

 seed has been known to lodge in the joints of the wasp in the 



