DISPERSION OF FRUITS AND SEEDS 67 
CHAPTER XII 
THE DISPERSION OF FRUITS AND SEEDS 
EVERYONE must have noticed seedlings of trees, such as the 
Sycamore, even when no adult tree of the same kind was in 
sight ; acorns have been found a mile away from the nearest 
Oak ; rare plants are found in patches miles away from each 
other. How can facts of this kind be explained? Very 
largely by observing the way in which fruits or seeds are 
dispersed by the parent plant. 
Indehiscent fruits are often furnished with 
By Wind. . 
appendages which carry the fruit some distance 
from the parent plant. The achenes of the Clematis are 
provided with long feathery styles (Plate V., Fig. 92). In 
the Composite, the calyx becomes transformed into an organ 
of dispersion called a “pappus” (Fig. 89). The fruit of many 
trees, such as the Ash and Sycamore, is provided with wings, | 
by which they are wafted through the air often to a consider- 
able distance (Figs. 90, 91). In the Elm, the wing is all round 
the fruit and not at one end of it, as in the Ash and Sycamore. 
Fruits with a soft juicy coat, such as hips, 
haws, and berries, are eaten by birds and the 
seeds cast out of the body perhaps miles away from the spot 
where the parent plant was. In the late autumn, it is quite 
usual to see in a hedge the remains of the succulent coat of 
the hip or haw, many of the achenes enclosed in it having 
been carried off. Other fruits that are not soft or juicy have 
appendages (awns) with hooks or bristles, by. which they 
become attached to the wool of sheep and other animals, and 
are thus carried some distance. This is the case in the Geum 
(Fig. 88), and a recent observer gives instances of acorns 
carried by rooks a mile or more from the nearest Oak-tree, 
generally in their cups. 
By Animals. 
