DAISY STARS. 
Two little Daisy-stars shining for me. 
Out of a letter from over the sea. 
Shed their soft lustre along the dim track 
Into my childhood-haunts all the way back : 
Into green meadows, fringed white with the spray 
Of the blossoming Thorn-bush, child of the May, 
"Where the dear Daisies grow, spangling the sward 
With silver and gold for peasant and lord. 
Beautiful vision of long-vanished years. 
I see it again, through eyes dim with tears. 
There's never a hill-slope, never a lawn 
Unsprent with the Daisy, where I was born : 
But vainly I search ’neath the western sky, 
Gleams of the “ crimson-topt flower" to spy. 
Here are meadows and vales of Emerald hue, 
But never a Daisy is wet with their dew. 
The prairie’s broad bosom with blossoms is gay,. 
But “There is a Daisy,” no pilgrim may say. 
From ocean to ocean, from fir-tree to palm, 
No Daisy in spring-time chants its low psalm; 
While there, in fair England, each morsel of sod 
Looks lovingly up through the day's-cye to God: 
Thickly the blossoms gleam iu the church-yard, 
And the pauper’s cold grave is shiningly starred. 
Thus am I looking across the great sea. 
Lighted by Daisy-stars shining for me; 
Thus am I living my childhood again, 
Linked with the Past by a frail Daisy-chain. 
Rhymes for her Daisies my friend asked of me; 
So we change trifles across the blue sea. 
Willi ah C. Richards. 
THE WONDERS OF THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 
XIV. 
Seeds axd their Dissemination— ( Continued ). 
Seeds are distributed to a great extern by animals that 
take them into their stomachs, after which they are 
deposited in the soil undigested. This is often the case 
with the seed of many species of berry, such as the 
Misletoe, which the thrush swallows, and afterwards 
deposits upon the boughs of such trees as it may happen 
to alight upon. The seeds of Coranthus Amerieanus, 
and other perennial plants, are said to be deposited in 
like manner on the branches of the Coccoloba Grandi. 
flora and otLer lofty trees, as also the seeds of Phyto¬ 
lacca Decandria, the berries of which are eaten by the 
robin, thrush and wild pigeon. And so, also, the seeds 
of currants and similar fruits are sometimes deposited 
after having been swallowed by blackbirds or other 
birds, as may be seen by observing a currant-bush 
growing out of the cleft of another tree where the 
seed may have been left, and where there may 
happen to have been a little dust collected by way of 
soil, or where a natural graft may have been effected by 
the insinuation of the radicle into some chink or cleft. 
It seems, indeed, surprising that any seeds should be 
able to resist the heat and digestive action of the 
stomach of animals; but it is undoubtedly the fact. 
Some seeds seem even to require it. The seeds of Mag¬ 
nolia glauca, when taken to foreign countries, are said 
to refuse to germinate until they undergo this process, 
and it is known that some seeds will bear a still greater 
degree of heat without any injury. Spalansani mentions 
some seeds that germinated after having been boiled in 
water, and Du Hamel gives an account of some others 
that germinated even after having been exposed to a 
degree of heat equal to 285 degs., Fahrenheit. 
The agency of wind, too, is a powerful means of the 
dispersion of seeds. Some are fitted for this mode of 
dispersion from their extreme minuteness, such as those 
of the Mosses, Lichens and Fungi, which float invisibly 
in the air, and vegetate whenever they happen to meet 
with a suitable soil. Others are fitted for it by means 
of an attached wing, as in the case of the Fir-tree, and 
Liriodendron tulipifera, so that the seed, in falling from 
the cone or capsule, is immediately caught by the wind, 
and carried to a distance; others are peculiarly fitted 
for it, by means of their being furnished with an agretto 
or down, as in the case of the Dandelion, Goats’-beard, 
and Thistle, as well as most plants of the class syn- 
genesia; the down of which is so large and light in pro¬ 
portion to the seed it supports, that it is wafted in the 
most gentle breeze, and is often seen floating through 
the atmosphere in great abundance at the time the seed 
is ripe. Others are fitted for this mode of dispersion by 
means of the structure of their pericarp, which is also 
wafted along with them, as in the case of Slaphylea 
trifolia, the inflated capsule of which seems as if obvi¬ 
ously intended thus to aid the dispersion of the con¬ 
tained seed, by its exposing to the wind a large and dis¬ 
tended surface with but little weight. And so, also, in 
the case of the Maple, Elm, and Ash, the capsules of 
which are furnished, like some seeds, with a membran¬ 
eous wing, which, when they separate from the 
plant, the wind immediately lays hold of and drives 
before it. 
A further means adopted by Nature for the dispersion 
of seeds of vegetables, is that of the instrumentality of 
streams, rivers, and currents of the ocean. The mouh- 
