PLANTS RIDE ON ANIMALS _- 95 
bony, the fleshy or pulpy matter being dried up or 
absent. They have thus the appearance of huge 
long-legged spiders. The thorns or hooks are ex- 
ceedingly sharped and recurved, lacerating the flesh 
and tearing the clothes fearfully when they have 
become attached. These spines are merely natural 
prolongations; the flowers are of a rich crimson and 
purple colour; the corolla is tubular and somewhat 
of the shape of the foxglove; the calyx is five- 
parted; and the fruit contains a number of pecu- 
liarly wrinkled seeds.” 
It is claimed that the fruits of this plant some- 
times bring death to so powerful an animal as the 
royal lion. If while rolling about on the dry plains 
they attach themselves to the lion’s skin, in trying 
to get them out he often gets them into his mouth 
and as a result perishes in great agony. 
The number of plants whose seeds ride on ani- 
mals is very large; but there are some more progres- 
sive—or more fortunate—than their neighbours who 
do their travelling by means of the railroads; some 
even take long steamboat journeys. Seeds of vari- 
ous kinds, like the grasses and sedges, clovers, and 
flax, often ride to regions uninhabited by their kind 
in the bedding or litter of stock cars. When the 
cars arrive at the stock-yards they are unloaded but 
seldom cleaned; instead, they are sent with their 
