SEEDS AND FRUITS 283 



of seed-production, implying in many cases a wealth 

 of blossom. 



A large number of the seeds set and ripened each 

 year are doomed to failure. The seeds or fruits are 

 the new colonisers, which, transported to a distance 

 from the parent plant, by one agency or another, 

 seize upon such new ground as is available. They 

 have to fight not only against climatic conditions, 

 sufficiently severe to eliminate the majority of the 

 seeds annually distributed, but to compete for space, 

 light, air, and moisture with the seeds or seedlings 

 of other plants, or to contend with an established 

 adult population, for the most part of a perennial 

 nature. The existence and welfare of the species 

 is dependent on the prosperity of the new generation, 

 which begins with the seed. The first step is the 

 successful establishment of the seedling, if possible at 

 some distance from the parent. It may now be well 

 to consider how this object is furthered among 

 Alpine plants. 



Early flowering and an abundance of flowers are 

 simply the means whereby a few, out of a large 

 number of seeds matured, may gain a hold in their new 

 surroundings, before the short summer and autumn 

 merges into winter. The contrivances for the dis- 

 tribution of the seed or a group of seeds, either free 

 or still enclosed in the fruit, are as varied in the Alps 

 as in the plains of Britain, but they are not, for the 

 most part, dissimilar to those met with in this 

 country. 



