132 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



shoot an orange-seed across a room by pressing 



it between finger and 

 thumb. When you are 

 looking at ripe sorrel-pods 

 on a hot day with face 

 close to the ground, you 

 may get a volley of the 



Psa-flower pod after jerking out . 



its seed. Seed agamst your cheek. 



If you place a few ripe seed-pods upon a long table, you 

 may be able to measure how far the seed is thrown. 



6. When you walk among gorsebushes on a hot- 

 wind day, you may hear the pods going pop, pop, on 

 every side ; and if you hold up a newspaper and 

 touch one or two ripe pods, you will see with what 

 force the tiny peas are thrown against the paper. 



One of the commonest of our climbing plants for 

 covering fences is the dolichos. You will know it by 

 its compound leaf with three leaflets, and its pink pea- 

 flower. The ripe pod, in hot weather, suddenly curls 

 up, and throws the little dark pea from three to ten 

 feet. 



7. Water-borne seeds. Then there are the seeds 

 that are borne away from the parent-plant by water. 

 After violent rain and wind, you may often find in a 

 field that is half-bare of grass, ridges of dry leaves and 

 seeds that have been washed along the ground for 

 some distance. Every flood, too, in our rivers carries 

 down seeds, which lodge on banks or on neighbouring 

 flats. If a few wattle-trees were planted near the 

 source of a river, they would soon in this way begin 

 to scatter wattle-trees all down the course of the 

 river. It is to this that we owe the groves of silver 



