SEEDS SCATTERED BY EXPLOSIVE MECHANISMS 87 



Fig. 89. — The three-valved pod of the 

 Violet throwing its seeds. Much enlarged. 

 After Beal. 



collect on the wagon wheels and are carried to the highways or 

 to other fields. Threshing machines are important agents in 

 scattering seeds, for in their traveling through the country seeds 

 of various kinds are jostled 

 from them and seed the 

 fields and highways. 



Man scatters many 

 weeds by sowing unclean 

 seed. Clover seed, Alfalfa 

 seed, Grass seed, Wheat, 

 Oats, etc., are often ob- 

 tained from distant states 

 or even from foreign coun- 

 tries for seeding. Weed 

 seeds are usually present 

 in agricultural seeds, and 

 sometimes they are pres- 

 ent in large quantities. In tracing weeds, it has been found 

 that many of the most troublesome ones have come from Europe, 

 Asia, or some other foreign country. Man has carried the seeds 

 and fruits of these weeds across the seas, and most of them have 



been imported and sown with agri- 

 cultural seeds. 



Seeds Scattered by Explosive 

 or Spring-like Mechanisms. — ^In 

 this kind of dissemination the 

 plant itself is the agent which, 

 either by sudden ruptures due to 

 strains or by explosions due to 

 the swelling of certain tissues, is 

 able to throw the seeds often a 

 considerable distance. In the 

 pods of some plants, as in thip 

 Vetches, Witch-hazel, Castor 

 Bean, and Field Sorrel, bands of 

 tissue, which ripen under tension, 

 exert such a strain that the pods 

 suddenly rupture with so much violence that the seeds are thrown 

 in every direction. In the Violets the carpels, as they ripen and 

 dry, press harder and harder upon the seeds, which suddenly 



Fig. 90. — The Squirting Cu- 

 cumber (Ecbalium Elaterium) 

 squirting its seeds from the pod. 



