Norwich bulletin. [volume] (Norwich, Conn.) 1895-2011, 1914-01-01
SEED SOWING
BY JANET NICHOLS.

Any little folk who take walks in the
country these fan days may find when
they geI home that their clothes are
covered with small objects which stick
like grim death. Burrs. we call them,
ana we are not vary weel pleased when
they set on our clothes but they are
Interesting, for all that. and our
MotheE Nature plays 3 very clever
trick on us when she makes us carry
them for her
Ages ago she learned the Importance
oil a rotation Of crops and she takes
great pains to see that seeds don't fall
beside the parent plant, where the soil
IS exhausted. That is why she pro-
vides the seed vessels OF the burdock
ana various other plants with a lot of
vicious little hooks which Law firm
hold on the wool, or hair or clothes
Of any passing animal and get free
transportation for the seeds to pas
cures new.
These hooks, which are very mild
and harmless here. compared with
what they are in the tropics, are only
one of a great many devices that ma
ture uses 10 get her seeds soWn in new
places every year. Hooks would not
pc OF amy use on trees, for instance.
because RAISING animals would not
brush against them and so for these
nature Uses the autumn winds as car
rlerS. providing the seeds with wings
or plunes. often very beautifully pat
tsEEed, which carry them long dis
tsnces.
The maple seeds fly in pairs. each
one having a wing. and we call them
maple keys. The Eastwood provides
one wing to a stalk bearing several
seeds. The elm seed is entirely sur
rounded by wing-like extension.
Poplar and willow seeds are pIumed,
and sometimes fill the air in such
numbers as to give the appearance
of fog. The dandelion not only has
a fairy sail TO carry it through the air,
but tiny graphing iron with which
to anchor itself to earth again. No
wonder We can't keep it of our lawns,
however hard we try.
The featherE plumes of the thistle
seed carry It fast and far to make life
burden TO the farmer, and the cat
tails on the JERSEY meadows send their
piCmed seeds in clouds across the Hud-
son to New York when the late fall
winds begin to blow. The plumes of
the milkWeed are SO soft and abund-
ant THAI We sometimes make cushions
Of them, and the clemat:s has such
long and lovely plumes that they make
the vine almost as beautiful after the
blossoms have gone to seed as it was
before
Seeds that have neither wings nor
plumes are also carried by the wind,
and the seed vessels, or capsules, as
the botanists say, are so arranged that
they cannot get out except when the
wind is high. The poppy, for instance,
has very clever little prison from
which its seeds can escape only when
a favorable time for their entry into
the world has arrived Around the
top Of 1t is a row of little doors and
1t is only when the capsule is swung
by the wind that the seeds. which at
other times lie quietly at the bottom,
are able to reach the doors.
The wind is probably the most use
ful carrier that the seeds have, but
the water also does a great deal for
them, and carries them even longer
distances. one seed that reached the
Azores from the West Indies was quite
uninJured by its journey of 5000 miles
and afterward terminated in Kew
Gardens, London, Aquatic plants
eftsn provide their seeds with floats,