THE FRUIT AND SEED-DISPERSAL 



291 



fruit-coat (pericarp), with air-spaces. Their large fruits can thus 

 be easily floated away as they drop, by a stream or by tides. But 



Fic. 236. 

 Samara, or \vinpi?d fruit of Sycamore, dividing into two. (.^fter Fignier.) 



extreme cases are seen in Nipa, Cocos, and Lodoicea, all of them littoral 

 and estuarine Palms. Their fruits have fibrous husks with air- 

 chambers, and this serves to float them. Each contains a single 



Fig. 237. 



Fruiting annual plants of Salsola, caught at a wire fence, as they were rolled by 



wind over level sand, on the coast near Adelaide, .Australia. 



seed. Those of Lodoicea, the Double Coco-Nut of the Seychelles, are 

 the largest known. They may be carried long distances by ocean 

 currents. 



