of 



wind-blown flight to the earth. A high wind 

 may carry them miles. 



With the pines and spruces the cones open one 

 or a few scales at a time, so that the seeds from 

 each cone are distributed through many days. 

 The firs, however, carry cones that when ripe 

 often collapse in the wind. The entire filling of 

 seeds are thus dropped at once and fill the air 

 with flocks of merry, diving, glinting wings. 

 A heavy seed-crop in a coniferous forest gives a 

 touch of poetry to the viewless air. 



The lodge-pole pine is one of the most patient 

 and philosophical seed-sowers in the forest. It 

 is a prolific seed-producer and has a remarkable 

 hoarding characteristic, that of keeping its 

 cones closed and holding on to them for years. 

 Commonly a forest fire kills trees without con- 

 suming them. With the lodge-pole the fire fre- 

 quently burns off the needles, leaving the tree 

 standing, but it melts the sealing-wax on the 

 cones. Thus the fire releases these seeds and 

 they fall upon a freshly fire-cleaned soil, a 

 condition for them most favorable. 



Although the cherry is without wings or a 

 298 



