130 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



XXIL— FRUI'tB AND SEEDS— Part L 



How Seeds are Spread. 



1. When young birds are old enough to seek their 

 own food the old birds drive them away from their 

 " selection." If they remained where they were bom, 

 there would not be food enough for all. 



2. Why do plants send their seeds out into the 

 world ? In the same way, a plant has its own bit of 

 ground, and it needs it all in order to live and thrive. 

 Thousands of seeds never become plants, because they 

 cannot get root-room and leaf-room. A Cape-weed 

 that spreads its broad rosette over the earth may 

 smother a hundred little plants, and so with every 

 flat weed that succeeds in life. Indeed, very few of 

 the seeds of wild flowers ever become plants. Some 

 seeds fall on stony ground where they cannot get a 

 start ; others are eaten by birds, or beasts, or insects. 

 Even when they do get a start in life, they seldom 

 become full-grown. Some are choked, as we have 

 seen, by other plants ; others are eaten or crushed, 

 and others die of thirst. You see, then, why plants 

 are fitted with a hundred plans for spreading their 

 seeds far and wide. How well this is done you may 

 judge by an example of great interest. 



3. How a vacant island was stocked with plants. 



Some years ago there was an island called Krakatoa, 

 a few days sail north of Australia. A great volcanic 

 eruption destroyed this island, so that no living thing 

 was left upon it. To-day there are many different 



