EARLY SEEDTIME. 87 







devices have outrun all others in the struggle for exist- 

 ence ; indeed, dispersion in some form or other has 

 become an absolute necessity for every kind of plant in 

 a state of nature. Some of them manage it by produc- 

 ing tubers side by side with the decayed ones, like the 

 orchids ; others send out runners or suckers like the 

 strawberry and the creeping buttercup ; yet others 

 sprout afresh here and there from underground stocks or 

 reserve stores, like coltsfoot or potatoes. But by far the 

 greater number manage to get their seeds scattered for 

 them either by the wind or by means of animals ; for 

 these two main motor powers of the environment are 

 always utilized for every purpose by plants, whose own 

 powers of locomotion are so very feeble. Sometimes 

 the seeds stick, like burrs and cleavers, to the wool of 

 sheep or the hair of animals, and are nibbed off at last 

 against a hedge or a post, at a distance from the mother- 

 plant. Sometimes they are swallowed whole but not 

 digested, as in the strawberry, raspberry, and cherry. 

 Sometimes they are carried before the wind by expanded 

 wings, as in the maple, the sycamore, and the ash. 

 Sometimes they are borne up by light hairs or down, as 

 in the willow, the cotton, and the dandelion. Occasion- 

 ally even the plant itself supplies the necessary energy ; 

 and of this the small green bittercress growing on the 

 wall by Yenlake affords at the present moment an excel- 

 lent example. Bittercress has long, straight, upright 

 pods, like charlock or cabbage, and it thrives for the 

 most part on dry banks or high open places. When the 

 seeds are ripe the sides of the pod unroll elastically, by 

 the unequal drying of their stringy tibres ; and as they 

 do so they shoot out the 'little seeds like popguns, and 

 scatter them to a distance of six or seven feet ; as one can 

 easily see by picking an unripe spray and spreading a 



