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Every day during Autumn, these little beggars put forth 

 the glad hand to every wanderer through fields or woods. 

 So slyly is this greeting extended that it usually is un- 

 noticed until the clothes may have accumulated hundreds 

 or even thousands of the clinging pests. Our wanderer, 

 be he preacher or layman, scientist or laborer, must per- 

 force sit him down and patiently take his lesson in botany, 

 picking them off one by one. Probably however, beyond a 

 few remarks in regard to "beggar-lice" in general, he will 

 not realize that these clinging little things are seeds and 

 that' he has unwittingly founded a new colony of the 

 plants. 



Let us consider a few of these very interesting types of 

 plants and their ways of sending their seedlings out into 

 the world, first taking some of those that use no sentient 

 agenc}' for their transportation. 



Everyone knows the little DANDELION that grows 

 everywhere and blooms in season and out. Why do its 

 flower-stems that when tipped with the golden blossoms 

 were curved and often lying close to the ground, straighten 

 out and grow so that the feathery balls are elevated above 

 the grass tops.'' Not for display and not as objects for 

 children to play with, but solely so that the seeds, each of 

 which has a silky, feathery parachute attached, may get a 

 chance to float away on the breezes, unobstructed. Of 

 course many of them come to earth within a short distance 

 of the parent plant, but under favorable conditions some 

 of them may travel for miles before finding their final 

 resting place. 



The aviation method of dispersal is also chosen by the 

 milkweeds. The large fragrant clusters of blossoms that 

 greet us in June and July are replaced in late summer by 

 large, coarse, pointed pods. Each of these pod houses a 

 large number of black seeds and each one of these seeds 

 has a number of silken filaments attached. When the 

 proper time arrives, the pod-house bursts and the seeds go 

 trooping out like children after school hours, to become the 

 playthings of the winds until at last they reach secure. 



