634 Marvels of the Universe 
Photo by) (W. P. Pueraft, F.Z.S. 
THE “GILA MONSTER.” 
This is a lizard, some two feet long, found in New Mexico, and is remarkable for the fact that, of all known lizards, it alone has 
the mouth armed with poisonous fangs like those of a snake. This poison is sufficiently strong at times to kill even men. 
Bishop’s Pine carry a sharp, recurved spine on the external apex of each scale, rendering them 
extremely unpleasant to handle. 
Pines, and all other conifers, produce naked seeds (although these are wedged in among the 
scales), a character which betokens a type of vegetation which held the field when the chalk of 
Sussex and the greensand of Surrey were in process of formation under the ocean. But in the 
course of unnumbered ages plants took to providing a special envelope for their seeds, a device 
which proved so successful that at the present day it prevails among the vast majority of species. 
All flowering plants and broad-leaved forest-trees protect their seeds in this manner. But they have 
not been so proud as to discard the device of equipping seeds with wings, which their forerunners 
had proved to be so successful during hundreds of thousands of years. Many plants of the modern 
type have adopted it. 
Thus the ash produces its fruit in “‘ keys,’”’ consisting of a bunch of green wings, each wing 
with a cell at the base in which is a single seed—wing and cell together measuring about an inch 
and a half. The maple family have improved on this arrangement by providing two seeds, each 
with a wing, and as the carpels containing the seeds are formed in pairs, they sally forth on a pair 
of wings. In our native field maple the wings are extended horizontally in a straight line ; in the 
sycamore (which is also a species of maple) they are set horizontally at an angle with each other. 
Presumably the sy¢amore’s arrangement is the more effective, because, while the field maple does 
not spread rapidly, the sycamore, although not indigenous to Great Britain, establishes itself so 
quickly and widely from seed that, if unchecked by agriculture, etc., 1t would soon take exclusive 
possession of some districts. Herr Dingler found by experiment that, in still air, the winged seed of 
sycamore fell six feet in 5.6 seconds, whereas when he clipped off the wings the seed fell the same 
distance in 1.2 seconds. ; 
Other plants, instead of wings, provide their seeds with a continuous papery border, which is 
equally effective in retarding their descent, thereby exposing them to the drifting force of wind. 
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