OTHER PLANTS WITH STICKY SEEDS OR SEED PODS. 
Quite a number of plants prepare sticky coverings to 
their seeds or seed pods, in order to help the seeds 
get away. 
The squirting cucumber is one 
of the most curious of these. It 
grows wild in southern Europe, 
but is sometimes seen in gardens 
in this country, not because of 
its beauty, but because it is so 
curious. It is a hairy plant and 
not at all pretty, but when its hairy cu- 
cumber-shaped seed pods are ripe some- 
thing funny happens. The pod falls from 
the vine, and through the round hole left 
when it fell away from its stem, that which is inside the 
pod is shot out with violence. Out fly seeds and a quan- 
tity of sticky liquid. If a bird happens to be about when 
this happens, he will make haste to get far from such a 
queer-acting plant ; and if he was shot by it, he will 
carry some of the sticky seeds with him ; or he may get 
the seeds attached to him after they have been shot out. 
You see the squirting cucumber has two ways of 
sending its seeds on their journey into the world. It 
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