50 ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 



put this unobtrusive but very effective mechanism into 

 working order. 



The devices of this character employed by various 

 plants for the dispersal of seeds even in ordinary dry cap- 

 sules are far too numerous for me to describe in full detail, 

 though they form a delightful subject for individual study 

 in any small suburban garden. I will only give one more 

 illustrative case, just to show the sort of point an amateur 

 should always be on the look-out for. There is an 

 extremely common, though inconspicuous, English weed, 

 the mouse-ear chickweed, found everywhere in flower- 

 beds or grass-plots, however small, and noticeable for its 

 quaint little horn-shaped capsules. These have a very 

 odd sort of twist or cock-up in the middle, just above the 

 part where the seeds lie ; and they open at the top by 

 ten small teeth, pointed obliquely outward for no appar- 

 ent reason. Yet every point has a meaning of its own 

 for all that. The plant is one that lies rather close upon 

 the ground ; and the effect of this twist in the capsule 

 is that the seeds, which are relatively heavy, and well 

 stored with nutriment, can never get out at all, unless a 

 very strong wind is blowing, which sweeps over the 

 herbage in long quick waves, and carries everything it 

 shakes out for great distances before it. So much design 

 have even the smallest weeds put into the mechanism for 

 the dispersion of their precious seeds, the hope of their 

 race and the earnest of their future ! 



Artillery marks a higher stage than the sling and the 

 stone. Just so, in many plants, a step higher in the 

 evolutionary scale as regards the method of dispersion, 

 the capsule itself bursts open explosively, and scatters its 



