Chances of Life 287 



the stronger survive. Seeds falling upon ground already 

 covered, and thickly covered, with vegetation, as a 

 hedge-bank generally is, have but little chance In fact, 

 they hardly reach the soil at all, the great majority of 

 them. 



Look among the long meadow-grass, and you may 

 often see hundreds and thousands of downy seeds 

 caught among the stems and suspended, each wi^h its 

 seed pointing downwards, ready to take advantage of 

 any crack in the soil in which to insert itself, but quite 

 unable and unlikely to reach it. And even of the seeds 

 which do reach it, how many must find that the first- 

 comers are stronger and better fitted for the situation 

 than themselves ! and so, even if they spring up, they 

 are speedily overpowered and crowded out. 



This, of course, is especially the case with such seeds 

 as are transported long distances and to other quarters 

 of the world, where the chances are that they will find 

 the soil already occupied by natives, among whom they 

 will be choked. Should they find a bare spot, however, 

 and soil and climate suitable, they will still be unable 

 to do more than effect a temporary settlement — ^will 

 not, in fact, become really naturalized — unless the 

 plants can either fertilize themselves or find insects 

 able to do the work for them. In the matter of space, 

 those, of course, have a great advantage which grow 

 upon others, as fresh surfaces are being constantly pre- 

 pared for them. 



The number of seeds produced varies enormously in 

 different plants. Orchids produce them at the rate of 

 thousands to each blossom ; and some of the foreign 

 species go far bej'ond this, a single seed-vessel con- 

 taining more than a million and three-quarters of seeds. 



