Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1919-10-27
HOW PLANTS TRAVEL.
By FREDERIC ]. HAsKIN.
Special Correspondence Of The Argus

| washington u e., OcL. Zo.--4ne ways IN
which plants travel about the world, getting
| into ali sorts of situations where you would
not expect to find them, is one Of the phases
of plant life which still puzzles scientists.
| A special study Of plant travels has been
made by D. LANCE, well known botanist, who
recently visited the American Forestry asso-
citation. In his study Of plants MIR. Lange has
| been in almost every part Of the world. He
/ has made especially valuable observations of
| the various methods Of seed distributioR and
has added a number OF new plants to the
worlds list.
| About q quarter of a million different kinds
| of plants are now known to science, Mr. Lang :
/ says. The Identification of this enormous
number represents the labor Of thousands Of
scientists. In the days of Linnaeus, but ten
thousand varieties had been identified.
Mr.. LANCE thinks OF the world a great
garden of plants. He describes America Wv
idly in terms of its plant life. Did you ever
think of it that way?
Curious and many are the methods of
travelling adopted by plants" says Mr.. LANCE.
Most plants can. of course travel only as
seeds, although there are a few exceptions to
this rule.
The advantage OF the first conner, the
sQuatter. one might say plays an important
part in the world of plant life. The cotton
tufted seeds Of willows and poplars, and the
little winged seeds of the white birch are car
ried by the wind in every direction. and they
are produced in such abundance that every
nook and patch of bare soil receives its supply.
The result is that these trees generally reach
vacant land sooner than any of their competi-
tors. The bare mud-hat left by a food, the
railroad gravel pit. the burnt-over and cut
over pine forests are nearly always pre-empt-
ed by willows, poplars or birches because
their seeds are much more widely disseminated
than the seeds of any other northern trees
Poplars and brches. however are short lived
trees, and within a century the dominant pines
will supplant them.
Shrubs and trees, as well as vines and
herbs, that depend birds for the dissent
nation of their seeds the wind lautQ0
species a close race. Woodbine and wild
grapes. dogwood and blackberry, wild cherries
and plurns, strawberries and raspberries
spring up as If by magic as soon as the lum-
herman, fire or storm have cleared the ground
flor them.
"Of many plants It is not very difficult to
discover their methods Of travelling.
The seed of maple, pine and dandelion sail
like parachutes away from the parent plant.
The gold-dotted hedges of jewel weed, or
touch-rne-not which mirror their delicate flow
northern beaver ponds are planted by the beav-
ers themselves as they travel and work on
their dams; while birds in their daily and
seasonal flights plant those remarkable gar
dens of many kinds OF wild fruit, whose pres
ence widely separated islands and noun
tains and in the depth of isolated canyons de-
lights both the eye and the palate of the
explorer
There are. however, numerous instances
of plant distribution Which present most in
teresting puzzles to naturalists and foresters.
One of the most pulling cases of plant
migration or distribution is that Of the devils
club. This plant is a common shrub in the
moist forests of tire Pacific coast and in GER
tain localities in the Rocky mountains where,
on account Of its countless sharp spines it is
the terror of the woOdsmen and timber cruis-
ers. Il is not found in the forests touching
the Great Lakes. except in several spots on
Isle Royale in Lake Superior. How it ira
versed the intervening thousand miles of plain
and forest and established itself on an island
in Lake Superior is hard to imagine
zone possible solution must not be over
looked in such cases as that of the devils club.
They may be cases Of a remnant vegetation.
Just scattered groves Of giant sequoias are
undoubtedly only the remnants of formeElarge
sequoia forests
THE case of the Kentucky coffee tree has
been j mystery ever since its odd, bluntly end
ing branches were found on a winter ramble
in Minnesota woods. The tree bears large
bean-like pods. containing big hard-shelled
seeds resembling somewhat in appearance
roasted coffee beans. How these seeds are dis
tributed is an unsolved problem. The great
pods remain on the trees through the winter
Neither the pods nor the beans float in water
and are, of course, much too heavy to be car
ried by the winds. The seeds are as hard as peb-
bles, and as far as can be discovered no birds or
animals eat them. A dozen of them were placed
in water for year. and yet they did not absorb
a drop. But If they are planted in the fall
they will sprout in the first or second spring
following One seed was given to a tame gray
squirrel. He drilled a small hole through the
she'll, but dropped the seed as soon as he had
reached the meat.
THE tree, although one OF our rarer forest
trees, is found from PENNSYLVANIA to the In
dian Territory, but it grows in small colonies
bitten miles apart 1t is found on rich bottom
lands and on islands in large lakes. It may
be that grouse occasionally swallow the seeds
as they swallow pebbles, for it seems impos-
sible that the seeds could reach islands with
out the aid OF some birds. It is likely that
the passenger pigeons in days gone by distrib-
uted the seeds of the coffee tree