The daily morning journal and courier., 1906-03-15
HOW PLANTS TRAVEL.
Mysterious Methods of Migration


 the short, smooth turf yelled with a soft, moving mist. It is the down loosened from the ripened heads of the litle dwarf plume thistle floating about in the breeze. So it sails, hither and thither until it finds a rest ing place where it may grow and re- produce its kind. Sitting in this gard en, again, which here slops down to the Willow-fringed river, the south wind waits toward you the soft white i down of the willows ripened seeds. Thus, making the wind their travelling car, many plants travel round the globe. The seeds of the locust tree have been carried from Africa to Italy. On April 24,1S97, a thunder storm passed over the latter country. Mingled with the rain there came the sand of the African desert and the Seeds of the locust tree. The familiar dandelion is one of the greatest wind travellers. Each seed, surmounted by little delicate parachute, is admir- 1 ably adapted for an aerial voyage. Crossing rivers, seas and mountain ranges, it has traversed the wide world With the adventurous Parry it has entered the Arctic regions, and with the sailor it has crossed the line, ap- | bearing in both Northern and Southern hemispheres. The Rose of Jericho seeking fresh woods and pastures new" for it's offspring. It is an an nual, growing in dry, sandy places, and as its seeds ripen the leaves wither, and the branches dry up and curl in- ward. A ball is thus formed, inside of which are seedpods, This is soon loosened from the sandy soil and be- comes the plaything of the wind. In the deserts of Syria and Egypt many of the balls may be seen drifting about. When the rain comes they uncoil and the seeds may germinate, The Wind Witch" of the Russian steppes is a plant which travels in a similar way. This is a sort of thistle, which, after towering curls up into ball. Then the stem rots off and the plants start off on the wings of the wind. There they go. careering over the plains, outstripping the swiftest horsenan. Now they rise suddenly into the air hopping and dancing along in cratic and fantastic courses. Some times two hook on to each other and go spinning off together. A dozen more join them, and the mass rolls lightly along before the brisk east wind. Some day, at the gentle in- vitation of the rain, they will uncoil and the seeds grow.
 As you wander by the clumps of | furze and broom in August and Sep | tefnber a little sharp Crack! Crack! resounds on every side. It is the bursting open of the seedpods and the scattering of the seeds. Each pod, in fact, is little gun, antd the seeds are the bullets. The contraction of the pod by drying is the firing'of the gun. The outside of each division of the pod contracts most and tends to curl out ward. In this force overcomes that | which keeps the divisions of the pod l together, and they spring apart. The seeds are thus shot out. Cranes bills, or native wild geraniums, adopt the principle of the sling You can illus trate the method thus: Hold a stone in each hand, the arms being held down to the sides. Raise the arms sharply, and at the same time open the hands. The stones fly out to some distance. This is precisely how the geranium soatters it's seeds, only 1t has five arms instead of two. Examine a ripe -head of seeds, TheafE seeds are arr ranged at the cases of five arms round a central axis. The outsides of these arms contract more quickly as they dry than the insides, and this gives 1 them a tendency to curl outward. This is restrained by the attachments at the bases, until the force is sufficient to break them. Then the arm files suddenly out and throws away the seed Selecting a seed at the right stage and giving 1t a little assistance, you may see the singing away of the seed yourself. The seed of the dande- lion may blow anywhere and not in- frequently reaches places where the young plant cannot grow In other plants, however, there are special provisions for getting the seed into a suitable place. The mangrove Is one of the most interesting of these. It grows in salt water swamps and shal- she discovers a suspicious fungus or leaf or twig, the affected plant is put into the quarantine hospital, which Is a greenhouse maintained exclusively for that purpose. She propagates the | fungus or gelatien in her laboratory 1 to find out its true character, an6 meanwhile the plant undergoes treat ment, the affected portions being re. moved, and proper medicine being ad l minstered with 8 sprinkler.
 Now and then it happens that the fungus in such a case is found to be oi a dangerous species and the plant be. ing declared incurable, is destroyed by | burning. More frequently it is made | entirely well by the medical and surgi. cal treatment to which it is subjected in the quarantine hospital, and is per. mitted to go out with the healthy specimens, which are forwarded 1T most instances to the experiment sta tions in one part of the country or an other, for propagating
 For each bunch of plants, on its ar. rival, a numbered card is made out l on which memoranda are written ir regard to that particular assignment If it passes inspection for bugs, tht fact is duly recorded; and if, on the other hand, it is found to harbar any parasitic insect, note is made of the species. In case it goes to the guar. antien hospital. the circumstance is