ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND. 49 



fortable, against a forked branch the exact spots that 

 best ^uits the young mistletoe for sprouting in. Man, in 

 turn, makes use of the sticky pulp for the manufacture of 

 bird-lime, and so employs against the birds the very 

 Dualities which the plant intended as a bribe for their 

 jdndly services. 



Among seeds that trust for their disposal to the wind, 

 the commonest, simplest, and least evolved type is that 

 of the ordinary capsule, as in the poppies and campions. 

 At first sight, to be sure, a casual observer might suppose 

 there existed in these cases no recognisable device at all 

 for the dissemination of the seedlings. But you and I, 

 most excellent and discreet reader, are emphatically not, 

 of course, mere casual observers. We look close, and go 

 to the very root of things. And when we do so, we see 

 for ourselves at once that almost all capsules open 

 where ? why, at the top, so that the seeds can only be 

 shaken out when there is a high enough wind blowing to 

 sway the stems to and fro with some violence, and scatter 

 the small black grains inside to a considerable distance. 

 Furthermore, in many instances, of which the common 

 poppy-head is an excellent example, the capsule opens by 

 lateral pores at the top of a flat head a further precaution 

 which allows the seeds to get out only by a few at a time, 

 after a distinct jerk, and so scatters them pretty evenly, 

 with different winds, over a wide circular space around 

 the mother plant. Experiment will show how this simple 

 dodge works. Try to shake out the poppy-seed from a 

 ripe poppy-head on the plant as it grows, without break- 

 ing the stem or bending it unnaturally, and you will 

 easily see how much force of wind is required in order to 



9 



