198 THE RING OF NATURE 



The possession of winged or burred seeds would 

 be little to the advantage of the ivy-leaved toad- 

 flax. To shoot them out as the violet and oxalis 

 do would be just the same as dropping them to 

 the foot of the wall or cliff on which the parent 

 grows, and the foot of the wall is out of the habitat. 

 The best that the toad-flax can do is to prevent the 

 seed from falling, to be sure that it will find a 

 lodgment at the right altitude. So the flower- 

 stalk bends and searches among the rocks till it 

 finds a crevice into which it thrusts its precious 

 burden. Not content with furnishing the seed 

 with a spade to dig its own grave, it digs the hole 

 and puts it in. 



If our arrangements for our progeny are elaborate 

 our progeny need not be numerous. The orchids, 

 which are so careful about their fertilization, are 

 singularly careless in the matter of seed distribution. 

 Each one of them produces enough seeds to plant 

 an acre, but they are so tiny that in the great 

 majority of them the vital spark cannot live till 

 germination. They blow in the wind almost like 

 grains of larch pollen, and it is by means of the 

 wind that they are sent abroad. But the other 

 plants that provide more substantial embryos and 

 more complex means of distribution overwhelm 

 the orchids in spite of the number of their seeds. 

 The fact that even our thistle, with a perfect 

 balloon for each seed, must produce so many seeds 

 shows what a perilous business this moving is 

 even under the best of conditions. 



