Rushes and Sedges 187 
astonishingly. The first heavy autumnal rains give 
it an opportunity to exercise its capabilities. 
In the moist atmosphere the ridges and horns ’ 
dissolve, and the seeds become embedded in a 
mass of viscid jelly. The mass swells up, forces 
its way through the slits in the now opened cap- 
sule, and carries the seeds out with it. By ex-. 
posure to air and sun the mucilage becomes brit- 
tle and powdery. Then the seeds are readily de- 
tached from it and carried off by autumn gales to 
seek their fortunes. 
One would think that this method of seed dis- 
tribution might be unique. But it has been 
adopted also by a little flower called <‘‘yellow- 
eyed-grass’’ (Xyris flexuosa), which often lives as 
neighbor to the water-rushes, and so must adapt 
itself to similar conditions. Yet the cousinship be- 
tween these two plant families is of that remote 
degree which in human relations ‘‘counts for noth- 
ing’’ north of Mason and Dixon’s line. 
The seeds of both water-rushes and yellow- 
eyed-grass are small and light, so that they can 
be blown far afield in quest of an abiding place, 
and they are long and narrow, and hence expose 
a large proportionate surface to the wind. 
The ripe seed-vessels of all the rushes are sur- 
