42 ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 



It means, etymologically, to scatter seed ; and it points 

 to the fact that everywhere in nature seeds are scattered 

 broadcast, infinite pains being taken by the mother-plant 

 for their general diffusion over wide areas of woodland, 

 plain, or prairie. 



Let us take as examples a single little set of instances, 

 familiar to everybody, but far commoner in the world at 

 large than the inhabitants of towns are at all aware of : 

 I mean, the winged seeds, that fly about freely in the 

 air by means of feathery hairs or gossamer, like thistle- 

 down and dandelion. Of these winged types we have 

 many hundred varieties in England alone. All the 

 willow-herbs, for example, have such feathery seeds (or 

 rather fruits) to help them on their way through life ; 

 and one kind, the beautiful pink rose-bay, flies about so 

 readily, and over such wide spaces of open country, that 

 the plant is known to farmers in America as fire weed, 

 because it always springs up at once over whole square 

 miles of charred and smoking soil after every devastating 

 forest fire. It travels fast, for it travels like Ariel. In 

 much the same way, the coltsfoot grows on all new 

 English railway banks, because its winged seeds are 

 wafted everywhere in myriads on the winds of March. 

 All the willows and poplars have also winged seeds : so 

 have the whole vast tribe of hawkweeds, groundsels, rag- 

 worts, thistles, fleabanes, cat's-ears, dandelions, and 

 lettuces. Indeed, one may say roughly, there are very 

 few plants of any size or importance in the economy of 

 nature which don't deliberately provide, in one way or 

 another, for the dispersal and dissemination of their 

 fruits or seedlings. 



