Wild Flowers of Georgetown. 335 



descends steadily and gracefully like a little parachute, 

 often travelling to a considerable distance before it 

 touches the ground. One would think that this spinning 

 principle might be applied to the upper part of real 

 parachutes, as it certainly gives great slowness and 

 steadiness to the descent. A like plan is differently 

 developed for smaller and lighter seeds in pappus- 

 bearing plants like the thistle or dandelion at home, and 

 several familiar weeds out here of the groundsel type, 

 where silky or bristly hairs, sometimes rayed at the top 

 to form a parachute, sometimes spreading like the fea- 

 thers of a shuttlecock, serve to waft the seed to long 

 distances upon the breeze. In this way the Scotch thistle 

 has been blown through the length and breadth of Aus- 

 tralia, till it has become quite a dangerous enemy to 

 cultivation in many districts. Perhaps the prettiest ex- 

 ample of this mode of conveyance here is to be seen in 

 the bastard ipecacuanha, blood-flower, or red-heads, 

 (Asclepias citrassavica) , a roadside plant with narrow 

 leaves and conspicuous umbellate heads of red flowers 

 with curious bright yellow cup-shaped appendages in the 

 centre. On opening the green envelope of the fruit the 

 white seeds are seen arranged in a symmetrical fish- 

 scale pattern forming a sort of cone ; each seed is 

 attached to the centre by a bundle of flossv hairs, which 

 become feathery as the seed browns and ripens, and at 

 the right time sail away before the wind to some 

 new home. 



Some plants grow by the water-side, and simply 

 drop their fruit, enclosed in a floating pod or capsule, 

 for the currents to drift into fresh quarters. The spiny 

 pods of the nicker trees described above have thus been 



