HOW PLANTS LIVE TOGETHER 45 



ing there years and years ago, when the tall trees 

 that had just been cut down were young bushes, and 

 have the little seeds slept there all that time? 



No one can tell. In whatever way the seeds may 

 have become buried in the earth where a wood was 

 growing, when the trees are cut down or burned over 

 up they will come. It is just the same with many 

 other seeds, they will lie asleep for years and never 

 wake until they have a good opportunity to grow. 

 If the ground does not seem comfortable and 

 homelike to the seeds, they will not start to grow 

 at all. 



The seeds of the great willow herb, which we call 

 fireweed, are scattered abroad every fall, but only 

 a few come up from year to year, unless, indeed, the 

 ground has been burned over by a fire. Then up they 

 come in masses on that burned ground. A brush pile 

 burned in the woods, or some railroad ties burned by 

 the side of the road, give the seeds the sort of soil they 

 like and up they come. 



Where were the seeds before the ground was 

 burned? How did so many of them get to that spot 

 of burned earth? No fireweed had been growing 

 there before. We do not know. We can only say 

 that the seeds have slept. 



Suppose there was a little pansy seed that had 

 fallen where the sun shone too hot and too long. 

 The pansy loves the shade, so the seed would not 

 feel comfortable or at home where the earth was 

 baked by the sun and it would lie asleep. But while 

 it was sleeping another seed, which was lying near by, 

 might come up and grow into a plant that shaded 



