CHAPTER IX. 



DISPERSION OF FRUITS AND SEEDS. 

 PROVIDING MATERIAL. 



Since the fruits and seeds of many plants mature after the work of 

 the school year is completed, it is advisable to gather the most interest- 

 ing forms as they mature, and preserve them for the work of the suc- 

 ceeding year. Seeds and fruits with wings, barbs, hooks, etc., may be 

 dried and stored in boxes or any convenient receptacles. Seeds with 

 delicate hairs serving as parachutes, etc., should be gathered shortly 

 before their pods break open, and stored in pasteboard boxes. When 

 the pods are large, it is a good plan to tie them so they cannot burst 

 open on drying. The pods of milkweed and dogbane, for instance, 

 may be treated in this way. Fleshy fruits should be gathered in dif- 

 ferent stages of development and preserved in formalin. 



OBSERVATIONS. 



135. Follow the development of the pistil after pollina- 

 tion, in the cases of some of the flowers studied in the 

 laboratory or in the field, and note what changes it, or any 

 parts connected with it, undergo. Interesting examples 

 may be found in the strawberry, anemone, rose, crab 

 apple, gooseberry, plum, larkspur, violet, oxalis, geranium, 

 milkweed, spurge, cottonwood, hornbeam, hop hornbeam, 

 oak, walnut, hazelnut, maple, sumac, catalpa, climbing bit- 

 tersweet. 



136. Make drawings of fruits having hooks, anchors, 

 etc., by means of which they cling to animals and become 

 scattered by them. Typical forms of this sort, of common 



207 



