Seed Dispersal

7. Two grasses in fierce contention . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 8. Runners establish new colonies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 9. Branches lean over and root in the soil...

11. Some green buds and leaves float on water . . . . . . . . . 18 12. Fleshy buds drop off and sprout in the mud . . . . . . . . . 20 13. Seeds and fruits as boats and rafts ....

17. How pigweeds get about . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 18. Tumbleweeds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 19. Thin, dry pods, twisted and bent, drif...

37. Squirrels leave nuts in queer places and plant some of them 61 38. Birds scatter nuts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63 39. Do birds digest all they eat? . . . ....

53. Plants are not charitable beings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 54. Plants migrate to improve their condition . . . . . . . . . 85 55. Fruit grown in a new country is often...

1. Most of the larger animals move about freely.--When danger threatens, the rabbit bounds away in long jumps, seeking protection in a hollow tree, a log, or a hole in the groun...

3. Fairy rings.--Several low forms of plant life, such as _Marasmius oreades_, _Spathularia flavida_, and some of the puffballs, start in isolated spots in the grass of a lawn o...

7. Two grasses in fierce contention.--In growing a lawn at the Michigan Agricultural College, a little Bermuda grass was scattered with June grass, and the struggle has been mos...

11. Some green buds and leaves float on water.--Loosely floating on slow streams of the northern states, in water not the purest, may often be found the common bladderwort, _Utr...

17. How pigweeds get about.--In winter we often see dead tops of lamb's-quarters and amaranths--the smooth and the prickly pigweeds--still standing where they grew in the summer...

By numerous devices a large number of the lower plants send off their ripe spores with considerable force. Some call them sling fruits. One in particular, _Pilobolus cristallinu...

With the frosts of autumn ripe acorns, beechnuts, bitternuts, butternuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts are severed from the parent bush or tree and fall to th...

In describing the various means by which plants are dispersed, people are very likely not to mention the aid supplied by man, or to speak of his efforts as artificial or unnatur...

53. Plants are not charitable beings.--Man uses to his advantage a large number of plants, but there appears to be no evidence that the schemes for their dispersion were designe...