OBSERVATIONS FOR YOUNG BOTANISTS 187 
Fleshy Fruits. — We have seen how a peach is obtained 
from a pod, and how the receptacle supplies the succulent part 
of a strawberry and of an apple. What advantage these juicy 
structures may furnish the seed when it grows it is not easy to 
say, as the seed itself is well provided with nutriment for the 
embryo ; but it is of use in some cases as a means of dispersal in 
supplying birds with food. The seeds often have a stony pro- 
tection, as in ivy, hawthorn, grape, gooseberry and currant, &c. 
This resists decomposition in the digestive canal, and so the 
embryo remains uninjured. 
Aids to Dispersion. — Besides that already mentioned, 
many fruits and seeds are provided with special structures, 
which are more or less efficient in expelling and distributing the 
seeds ; but most plants are unprovided with them. The follow- 
ing may be taken as illustrations — achenes with “tails”: — 
In Clematis and some anemones, the style develops into a long 
hairy tail, giving the name “ old man’s beard ” to our common 
traveller's joy (C. Vitalba). In some fruits and seeds “ wings ” 
are developed as they ripen. This is called a “ samara” in the 
fruit of the maple, ash, elm and birch. In the Scotch fir, it is 
the seed which bears it, but in many other species of pine there 
is none at all. In the winter cherry {Physalis) the calyx forms a 
large bladdery covering, and when this falls it is rolled along by 
the wind, and ultimately the berry-like fruit within it decays and 
the seeds germinate. 
In some few cases, as in the so-called “rose of Jericho,” a small 
member of the crucifer family and nothing to do with roses, the 
whole plant dries up, is torn out of the sand and coils up like a 
ball. This is rolled across the desert, and when it reaches a 
moist place the pods burst and liberate their seeds. It is 
common to the east of Port Said. 
Some fruits and seeds are provided with tufts of hair. Thus 
the fruit of the dandelion, goats’-beard, thistles and valerian 
are provided with a hairy or feathery “ pappus,” really con- 
structed out of the calyx ; but numerous composites have none, 
and yet are as widely dispersed and often commoner than those 
so aided. Thus daisies on a lawn may be more numerous than 
dandelions in waste places and in meadows. The seeds of 
willow-herbs, willows and many other plants, have tufts of hairs 
growing from some point, or else all over it, as in cotton. It is 
interesting to take a long pod of any willow-herb just ripened 
and remove the valves ; it will be seen how the silky hairs on 
each seed immediately spread out when the pressure is released. 
They thus push themselves and each other out of the pod. In 
the reed-mace (sometimes but erroneously called bullrush) if they 
are gathered too late and nearly ripe, it will be seen that the fruits 
are supported on slender stalks carrying long bristles upon them ; 
these soon spread out, and so by driving one another about, if 
there be a puff of wind a room will soon get full of the “ down ! ” 
It would be impossible to describe in a short article all the 
