12 A SHARP LOOKOUT. 



of them. (In South America, Humboldt saw excel- 

 lent cordage made by the Indians from the petioles 

 of the Chiquichiqui palm.) Nature has determined 

 that these buttons should stay on. In order that the 

 seeds of this tree may germinate, it is probably nec- 

 essary that they be kept dry during the winter, and 

 reach the ground after the season of warmth and 

 moisture is fully established. In May, just as the 

 leaves and the new balls are emerging, at the touch 

 of a warm, moist south wind, these spherical packages 

 suddenly go to pieces explode, in fact, like tiny 

 bomb-shells that were fused to carry to this point 

 and scatter their seeds to the four winds. They 

 yield at the same time a fine pollen-like dust that one 

 would suspect played some part in fertilizing the new 

 balls, did not botany teach him otherwise. At any 

 rate, it is the only deciduous tree I know of that does 

 not let go the old seed till the new is well on the way. 

 It is plain why the sugar-berry-tree or lotus holds its 

 drupes all winter : it is in order that the birds may 

 come and sow the seed. The berries are like small 

 gravel stones with a sugar coating, and a bird will 

 not eat them till he is pretty hard pressed, but in late 

 fall and winter the robins, cedar-birds, and bluebirds 

 devour them readily, and of course lend their wings 

 to scatter the seed far and wide. The same is true 

 of juniper-berries, and the fruit of the bitter-sweet. 



In certain other cases where the fruit tends to 

 hang on during the winter, as with the bladder-nut 

 and the honey locust, it is probably because the frost 



