THE AMERICAN BOTANIST. 
75 
class of travellers, but the oleander like the milkweed, has a 
pappus made from a seed-coat. 
The curious spheres of the button-wood (Platamis) , so 
familiar to the rambler in winter, enclose great numbers of 
club-shaped nutlets, each one of which is really a fruit. Their 
sails are modified from the walls of the ovary. Another plant 
with fruits packed in a close head is the cat-tail. One has to 
break into one of these close-packed heads late in the year 
to fully realize the immense number of seeds it contains. They 
are all stood on end, as it were, with the tips of the seeds point- 
ing outward. Below the seed, toward the interior of the 
head, there is a stalk-like structure set with the silky hairs that 
form the parachute. By many, these hairs are held to repre- 
sent calyx and corolla. In any event what we have been in- 
clined to call a seed of the cat-tail is really a fruit. 
One of the most interesting of the devices for being car- 
ried by the wind, because of its unusual origin, is found in 
the common wild clematis. Here it is the style that has be- 
come feathered for transportation. The whole buttercup 
family, to which the clematis belongs is noted for including 
its style in the fruit, and in the anemone, this is to be seen 
though the short woolly hairs that clothe its fruits are out- 
growths of the ovary. 
As a general thing wind transported seeds are adapted 
to sailing in some way through the air. Some, however, like 
the bladder-nut seem intended to be rolled over and over on 
the ground. There are those who believe that the three water- 
tight compartments of the bladder-nut point to its adaptation 
for floating on the water, but the unusual lightness of its in- 
flated pod seems to place it with the seeds distributed by wind. 
The fruit of the silver-bell tree (Halesia) seems to be another 
of like character. As for the fruits of the parsley family and 
many of the composites like Actinomeris, these are really 
winged seeds that bridge at another point the gap that separ- 
ates winged seeds and parachute seeds. 
