390 Notes on the Spreading of some Cj'prian Plants 



plant. Of other plants with active spreading of their seeds the species of Viola, Oxalis and Geranium may be 

 mentioned; these, however, are not able to throw their seeds as far out as Ecballium does. 



Among- the passive ways of spreading- we will first mention the spreading by means of the wind 

 and the flowing water. 



The spreading through the wind seems to be of special importance for the vegetation of the 

 steppes. On the open far-stretching steppe-tracts the wind has a free course, and a great number of the 

 plants of the steppes have seeds or fruits, which are either quite small and light or supplied with special 

 adaptations for transport with the wind. This is for instance the case with the majority of the thistle- 

 like composites, which are so numerous in most of the steppe-societies; in the summer-months their fruits 

 are seen everywhere flying about with the wind. Several of the chief forest-trees within the mountain- 

 region, amongst others the Pi)a«*-species, Cedrus and Acer ohht si folium, have also seeds or fruits provided 

 with wings, and are thus adapted for the spreading through the wind. An instance of long transport of 

 seeds by means of the wind we have in all probability in the above mentioned find of a single individual 

 of Epilohium angustifoVnnn on the northern slope of Paputsa, at least 17.5 km. from the growing-place of 

 this plant on Troodos (p. 230); it is well known how the long-hairy seeds of this plant are carried along 

 with the air-currents also in northern Europe. 



When investigating the vegetation on the river-sides we have a good opportunity of studying the 

 spreading through flowing water. It is mentioned above, page 4, how the rivers on Cyprus are quite 

 dry during a great period of the year, and how after heavy rain-showers in the mountains in the course 

 of quite a short time, often only a few hours, they strong-ly swell up, rushing along Avith great violence. 

 When in this way the rivers flow over their banks they grasp with them what they can reach of branches, 

 leaves and other plant-fragments - amongst these also fruits, seeds and other parts capable of reproduction — 

 and may in the course of the short time the flood lasts carry them far oft'. On the 3rd of May, 1905, while 

 I was staying in the village of Kalavaso, I had the opportunity of seeing such a flood in the Vassiliko-river. 

 Of this I wrote in my diary: "Yesterday and to-day the i-iver has been in flood on account of heavy 

 rain-falls in the mountains. In the course of a quarter of an hour the river was transformed from a mere 

 brook to a rapid current The brown body of water rushed foaming down the valley, and the height of 

 the water increased at least 0.8 — 1 m. The flood carried with it great quantities of plant-remains, stubs, 

 branches, stems a. s. o. Sometimes a fresh, living Tamarix-siivwh came floating, the roots of which were 

 in good condition. The Tamarix- and AVi((>n-shrubs on the flooded banks act as a filter, holding back 

 what the river carries with it. When the water had sunk back to its ordinary height, I found amongst 

 their branches great quantities of accumulated drift-material, amongst which also several branches and 

 cones of fir (Finns haJepensis), which must at least have been transported several miles." On the banks 

 of the river of Pouzi, which comes from Stavrovuni, and which passes through the village of Alethriko, I 

 found on the 17th of March, 190.5, up to 1.5 m. above the actual water-level, plenty of remains from the drift- 

 material, which from the winter-flood had been held back in the branches of trees and shrubs. The chief 

 part of the drift-material consisted of leaves of Nerium Oleander, but numbers of seeds and several other 

 plant-parts capable of reproduction were also seen. Some seeds had germinated; thus I found amongst 

 the Ae)-ii<w!-leaves several quite tiny seedlings of Sanguisorba spinosa. Not unfrequently we meet on the 

 river- sides single specimens of plants, which are otherwise absent in the tract, and which grow in such 

 a manner that we have reason to suppose that the seeds have been carried by the river from more elevated 

 places. E. Hartmann mentions as an instance of this, that he has found some shrubs of Acer obtusifolium 

 on the shore of a brook at Parameli Chani on the southern coast, west of Limassol,') and I have myself 

 found Thymus integer in the lowland near Alethriko, growing in gravel-planes in the bed of the Pouzi- 

 river under such circumstances, that there is reason to believe that it has been carried down from the moun- 

 tains by the river. 



') Hartmann, Die Walder d. Insel Cypern, p. 187. 



