1S39] 



FARMERS' REGISTER. 



331 



furnished with a lonfj plumose tail, which serves I of the polte-berry (phytnlacca decandra,') which 



to scatter them in just the way in which the tuCi 

 of hairs does those of the thistle. 



The instrumentality of streams, rivers, and 

 ocean currents, and a further means, are made use 

 of b}'- nature, for the dispersion of seed. The moun- 

 tain stream washes down to the vaile}' the seed 

 which may accidentally fall into it, or which it 

 sweeps from its banks during a (reshet. The river, 

 winding along lb-rough extensive portions of coun- 

 try, conveys to the distance of many hundreds of 

 miles the seeds of plants which have grown at first 

 only at its source. On the islands in James river 

 at Richmond, there is no more common plant than 

 the tradescaatia, a plant which properly belongs to 

 the mountainous regions in which that river takes 

 its rise. Thai the seed from which these plants 

 have sprung, must have been floated down by the 

 river, is evident from the ftct, that in eastern Vir- 

 ginia i hey are Iburid no where except on tlie islands 

 in this river, and along its banks ; whilst they 

 grow in great profusion and luxuriance in the part 

 of the country in which the river takes its rise. 



"The southern shores of the Baltic, are visited by tino"." 



are eaten in great numbers by black-birds and ro- 

 bins. It seems indeed surprising, that any seed 

 should be able to resist the heal and digestive ac- 

 tion of the stomachs of animals, and yet it is an 

 undoubted fact that they do. Some seed seem 

 even to require it. It is stated by an English bo- 

 tanist, that the seeds of magnolia glanea, which 

 have been carried to that country, have generally 

 refused to vegetate until after undergoing this pro- 

 cess. It is known that some seeds will bear a 

 great degree of heat without injury. "Spalanza- 

 ni mentions some seed that germinated after hav- 

 ing been boiled in water; and Du Hamel gives an 

 account of some others that germinated after 

 having been exposed to a temperature of 235'' 

 Fahrenheit." It is stated by Mr. Cleghorn that 

 '•a farmer in the west of Scotland has been in the 

 practice, for some years, of feeding his cows upon 

 potato-balls, and using their dung; raising seed- 

 ling plants from it, the seed having passed through 

 the stomachs of the cows, without having under- 

 gone such a change as to prevent their vegeta- 



seed wliich have grown in the interior of Ger- 

 many, and the western shores of the Atlantic by 

 seed from the interior of America. Fruits indige- 

 nous to America and the West Indies have been 

 found on the western shore of Europe, and even 

 on the coast of Orkney and Shetland, evidently 

 carried thither by the ocean currents." 



Another very common means made use of for 

 (he disperson of seed, is the instrumentality of ani- 

 mals. Many seeds are carried to a distance (rom 

 the place where they grew, by attaching them- 

 selves to the bodies of animals, who have acci- 

 dentally come in contact with them, whilst in 

 search of food; the hooks or hairs with which 

 either the seed, or the pericarp is furnished, serving 

 as instruments of attachment, the seed thus fas- 

 tened upon the animal, bring carried about with 

 it imtil it is detached by some means, and commit- 

 ted to the earth. This is exemplified in the beg- 

 gar's-tick {bktens) where the hooks are attached 

 to the seeil itself; in the bed-straw (galium,) 

 where they are attached to the pericarp; and in 

 the burdock («rc/a/,ni,) where they are attached 

 to the general calyx. Many seed are dispersed 

 by animals in consequence of their pericarps bcinnr 

 used as Ibod. This is ofien the case with cher- 

 ries, and the berries of various plants, which birds 

 often carry away, until they meet with some con- 

 venient place fov devouring the pericarp, and then 

 drop the seed into the soil. So also seed are dis- 

 persed by such animals as the squirrel, who hoard 

 them up lor their winter's food. Sometimes the 

 seed arc hoarded up in the earth itself, in which 

 case some of them will generally be found to take 

 root and spring up into plants; though it has been 

 noticed that grouad-squirrels often deprive the 

 seed of its germ before depositing it in their holes, 

 as if apprized of its liabilit}'- to grow in such a sit- 

 uation as that in which they place it. The Indians 

 assert that all the oaks of this country have been 

 planted by squirrels. The seed is frequently taken 

 into the stomach of the animal, and afterwards 

 deposited in the soil unhurt. This is the case 

 with the seed of the mistletoe, Qviscum,) which 

 the thrush swallows, and aftervvards leaves upon 

 the boughs_ of such trees as it may happen to 

 alight upon. The same is the case with the seed 



That all the more perfect plants are propagated 

 by means of their seed, is a fact so abundantly 

 proven by experiment and observation, that it can 

 no longer be called in question ; but that the same 

 is true of the more imperfect plants, such as ferns, 

 mosses, lichens, fungi and sea-weeds, is not equal- 

 ly certain. As such plants produce no regular 

 flowers, and possess none of those organs of fructi- 

 fication by whose instrumentality the seeds of 

 more perlijct plants are produced, we would natu- 

 rally expect, that if they produced seeds at all, 

 they would be of a nature entirely different from 

 those to which we have already attended. That 

 nature has not neglected the means of reprodu- 

 cing these plants, however, is plain, from their 

 great abundance in favorable situations. On ex- 

 amination we find that although they do not pro- 

 duce regular seed like the more perlect plants, 

 they nevertheless, produce that which answers the 

 purpose equally well. The bodies by means of 

 which they are reproduced, are termed spores or 

 spondes. In the case of the more perlect flower- 

 less plants, that these spores act precisely like 

 seed in reproducing the species, there can be no 

 doubt; for if those from the back of the leaves of 

 a fern, or from the urn of a moss be sown, as has 

 often been done, they uniformly produce the same 

 species as that fi-om which they were derived. 

 Spores differ from regular seeds, both in their struc- 

 ture, and in their mode of growth. Instead of 

 possessing a regular germ, divided into plumule 

 and radicle, to v/hich one or more cotyledons are 

 attached, they are mere homogeneous masses of 

 cellular substance; and indeed, sometimes consist 

 of a single cellule. When they begin to grow, 

 instead oi" growing from one fixed point of their 

 surfice upwards, and from another (i nvnwards, 

 they are capable of sprouting from any part 

 of their surftice indifferently; that portion of the 

 suffice which is exposed to the light, extend- 

 ing into a stem, and that which is turnecl from the 

 litrht, becoming a root. "Mirbel, in his expe- 

 riments on marchantia, ascertained tiiat it waa 

 possible, up to a particular period of the growth 

 of the spores of that plant, to induce the parts 

 which they had developed to change their Hjnc- 

 tions; the rudimentary stem taking on itself (he 



