142 FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



Composition Exercise : A Bathurst burr in a field near Mel- 

 bourne sprang from seed grown on a Darling River station. Tell 

 the story of the travels of the burr. 



Drawing Exercise; (1) Draw and colour a bunch of berries or 

 of any coloured fruit. 



(2) Draw (a) a burr of the Bathurst burr plant ; (6) a single 

 hook of the burr (enlarged). 



XXIV.— FRUITS AND SEEDS.— Paet HI. 



How Seeds are carried by the Wind. 



1. We saw how some seeds manage to travel by 

 hooking themselves to animals. But this of course is 

 possible only in the case of plants that are near to the 

 ground. When the plants are over seven or eight feet 

 high, the seeds cannot be brushed off by animals. 

 And this is why many trees depend on the wind to 

 carry off their seeds. 



2. Tumble-weeds. Even in the case of low plants 

 the wind is sometimes used to scatter seed. The 

 branches of some low plants and grasses become brittle 

 when the seeds are ripe, and are broken off and carried 

 away by the first high wind. Some plants, indeed, 

 break off close to the root„ and are blown away entire. 

 On many of the wide open plains of Australia there is 

 a tumble-weed of this kind. It is often a good sized 

 shrub, growing as high as a small boy. This shrub 

 grows into a large, round ball ; big enough to be a 

 giant's football ; and the wind plays with it over the 

 plains, this way and that, for miles at a time, until, 

 one day, it sticks on a bush or fence. Even a fence 



