182 PASQUE-FLOWER. 



seasons, the venial and autumnal equinoxes, 

 materially assist in the dispersion of seeds. 

 Summer breezes, or fierce winds, are to 

 them as winged steeds, bearing tliem over 

 moors and mountains to the destined place 

 of tlieir growth. Tornadoes are often re- 

 quired to drive forth from out the dark 

 pine-forests of northern regions their firmly 

 adhering cones. Spring gales disperse over 

 the fields of Britain seeds from such dry 

 stems as have remained in sheltered places 

 during the winter months. Others which 

 ripen in the summer, are upborne by breezes 

 which scatter them in lanes and meadows. 

 Hence it happens not unfrequently that the 

 seeds of mosses, and those of different flowers, 

 are conveyed to high places on which a 

 thin and meagre soil has been deposited by 

 the decay of crustaceous lichens, whence 

 they spring forth, and clothe the arid soil 

 with a luxuriant vegetation. 



