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Title: Little Wanderers

Author: Margaret Warner Morley

Release Date: February 1, 2020 [EBook #61295]

Language: English

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    LITTLE WANDERERS

    BY

    MARGARET WARNER MORLEY

    AUTHOR OF
      “FLOWERS AND THEIR FRIENDS,” “A FEW FAMILIAR
      FLOWERS,” “BEE PEOPLE,” ETC.

    BOSTON, U.S.A.

    GINN & COMPANY, PUBLISHERS

    The Athenæum Press
    1899




    COPYRIGHT, 1899, BY

    MARGARET WARNER MORLEY

    ALL RIGHTS RESERVED




CONTENTS.


                                                 PAGE

      WHY PLANTS TRAVEL                            1

      THOSE THAT FLY WITH PLUMES OR DOWN           4

      DANDELIONS                                   4

      THISTLES                                    15

      MILKWEEDS                                   20

      LETTUCE                                     25

      CLEMATIS                                    27

      ASTERS AND GOLDEN-ROD                       29

      THE WILLOW                                  31

      CATTAILS                                    37

      GERANIUMS                                   39

      COTTON                                      41

      OTHER FLY-AWAYS                             45

      SEEDS THAT FLY WITH WINGS                   47

      MAPLES                                      47

      ELMS                                        52

      ASH TREES                                   54

      PINES                                       56

      SEEDS THAT FLY WITHOUT WINGS OR PLUMES      59

      OTHER SEEDS THAT ARE MOVED BY THE WIND      61

      TUMBLEWEEDS                                 63

      WANDERERS THAT CLING                        65

      BURDOCKS                                    65

      COCKLEBURS AND SAND SPURS                   68

      TICK TREFOIL                                70

      STICK-TIGHTS                                73

      AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS                    76

      FLAX                                        78

      MISTLETOE                                   80

      OTHER PLANTS WITH STICKY SEEDS OR SEED PODS 82

      WANDERERS THAT FLOAT                        84

      SEEDS THAT ANIMALS LIKE TO EAT              87

      THE HICKORY                                 87

      WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS                      90

      THE CHESTNUT                                92

      OTHER EDIBLE SEEDS                          94

      BERRIES                                     96

      CHERRIES                                    98

      APPLES                                      100

      SEEDS THAT ARE SHOT AWAY                    102

      OXALIS                                      102

      WITCH-HAZEL                                 104

      TOUCH-ME-NOT                                106




LITTLE WANDERERS.




WHY PLANTS TRAVEL.


Plants are great travelers; they often wander far and wide. Sometimes
they even cross the ocean and take up their abode in a new land.

The oxeye daisy, our common meadow buttercup, and the little Canada
thistle, now so abundant everywhere, are not native Americans, but came
here from Europe.

[Illustration: Buttercups.]

Very likely they sailed in the ships with the early settlers and took
possession of the New World with them. They are so much at home now
that most people think they always grew here. But they did not, and
when the Pilgrim Fathers looked over their new home the fields were not
white with daisies nor yellow with buttercups.

No doubt the Pilgrim Fathers were glad of this, for daisies and
buttercups often cover the fields and spoil the hay, and while
“daisies in the meadow” seem very lovely to the city people
who go to the country for the summer, daisies in the hay are another
matter, and the farmers do not think them lovely at all.

It is not the grown-up plants that travel, as a rule, though some of
them do. For you must know the plant world is a topsy-turvy kind of
place where the parents stand still at home and the children wander
about.

Of course the children are the seeds, and they are free, but when they
once settle down and begin to grow their wandering days are over.

Plants with roots are great home-bodies; nothing short of actual
violence can make them move from the spot they have chosen. Frequently
it happens that they die if moved.

Not so with the seeds, however.

They wander about, and their parents often take great pains to send
them out into the world.

For the children of the plants are very apt to die if they remain at
home too long. They need to find a place in which to settle down and
grow, and it is often better for them to do this at a distance from
their parents.

Plants eat what is in the soil, and each kind of plant needs some
particular earth food. When plants of one kind are crowded too closely
in a place the earth is often impoverished, and the plant might die
out if it were not able to find a fresh growing place. Then, again, if
the seeds always fell close to the parent plant, the earth would soon
become too crowded to support more than a very few new plants.

So for these and other reasons it is best for the seeds to go while
they are able and find a place for themselves.

Nearly all seeds are provided with some way of moving about, and while
some of them go very short distances others go very long ones.

They travel for their profit, and why may we not say for their
pleasure? For if a plant is able to feel and enjoy at all,—and I for
one believe it is,—then the dandelion seeds must feel very joyous
sailing before the wind in the early summer, and later the thistle-down
and the milkweed seeds, scudding before the breeze.

[Illustration: Some happy wanderers.]




THOSE THAT FLY WITH PLUMES OR DOWN.

DANDELIONS.


Everybody is well acquainted with the dandelion, but not everybody
knows that it was brought to this country from Europe. It is not
probable that a dandelion seed could come on the wings of the wind
three thousand miles across the ocean, nor is it probable that people
would bring it on purpose.

[Illustration]

Very likely dandelion seeds were accidentally mixed in with the grass
and clover seeds the settlers brought from their homes in the Old World.

Before the coming of the white man the Indian did not see the roadsides
yellow with dandelions, nor did he see dandelions at all, excepting a
kind that grows sparingly way up north and another that grows in the
Rocky Mountains.

The European dandelions liked the New World and when they had the
chance spread very fast, so that now they are everywhere—at least in
the East.

The reason they were able to spread so is that the dandelion seeds were
able to fly.

If they had not flown away but had dropped down close to the parent
plant and grown there, they would not have been allowed to spread much;
for people do not like dandelions in their fields and lawns, and try
hard to root them out.

This would be easy if the dandelions kept together in patches. But they
seem to say “catch me if you can” as they fly on the wings
of the wind, dropping down here, there, and everywhere, striking root
and merrily growing.

[Illustration: White-headed dandelions.]

The parent dandelion takes very good care of its seed children, and
plans for their future success by giving each one a little plume by
which it can be blown about by the wind.

Everybody knows the pretty, fluffy, white-headed dandelions that come
after the yellow flowers.

[Illustration: Seed case and plume magnified.]

Children often blow on them “to see what time it is.” If
all the seeds fly away but one, they say it is one o’clock; if
two remain, they say it is two o’clock, and so on.

They also blow on them to see if “mother wants me,” as every child
knows.

Each little silky part that flies away is a seed case and its plume.

If you look carefully at the part of the dandelion that flies about,
you will see the little brown seed case at one end, shaped something
like a tiny cucumber, and with little teeth near its top.

Out of its top grows a silky white stalk, and at the end of this is a
tuft of soft little hairs by means of which the seed case can float in
the air.

Each dandelion seed case contains one little seed, but the case fits
the seed so closely that most people speak of the whole thing—seed
case and seed together—as the seed. The proper name for such a seed
case and its seed is akene.[A] Not all akenes have plumes.

[A] ȧ-kēn´

The top of the dandelion stem is a flat cushion, and the little akenes,
when the seeds are ripe, stand on it, pointing out in different
directions so there may be room for every one with its spread-out plume.

[Illustration: The flat cushion with a few seeds attached.]

The plumes do not open out until the seed is ready to be blown away,
and the akenes do not stand pointing out in all directions until the
time to fly has come. Before that they are all packed closely together.

[Illustration: Before the plume opens out.]

Because the little akene is so light and feathery the breeze bears it
along, sometimes for quite a distance, but at last it drops down to the
earth or else is blown among the grasses or weeds or stones and lodges
there, and when the right time comes the seed that is in the little
brown seed case sprouts.

Sometimes the air seems to be full of dandelion akenes floating about.

Although the dandelion is so bright and pretty, people do not like it
in their lawns.

[Illustration: All closely packed together.]

Excepting when in bloom or when it is “white-headed,” it
is not as pretty as grass. It does not make a beautiful velvety carpet
to the earth, but its leaves look ragged and uneven and spoil the
appearance of the lawn.

It is from its leaves that the dandelion gets its name, for “dandelion”
means “tooth of a lion”; and if you look at a well-grown dandelion leaf
you will understand why it came to have such a fierce name.

Dandelions are very fond of growing in lawns. They like to be taken
care of, and they seem to like to have their heads cut off.

[Illustration: A well-grown dandelion leaf.]

Anyway the lawn mower does not trouble them in the least.

Their leaves grow close to the ground, in the shape of a rosette,
and when the lawn mower passes over, only the large outer leaves are
harmed; the young ones towards the center of the rosette remain unhurt
and have more light and air and space to grow in; so our dandelion
flourishes in spite of its pruning.

When a dandelion once gets its roots started it does not make so very
much difference if it has its flowers cut off, for it does not die when
winter comes. Only its leaves die. Its root continues alive in the
earth, and in the spring wakes up and puts out new leaves.

So cutting off the flowers does not destroy the dandelion, it merely
prevents seeds from forming, and more dandelions from starting.

Dandelion roots kill the grass by pushing it aside and taking the
earth-food for themselves.

[Illustration]

So if dandelions get started in a lawn they will soon kill out the
grass, and then there will be a dandelion lawn instead of a grass lawn!

A dandelion lawn is very beautiful for a little while in the early
summer. Sometimes it looks like a carpet of gold, the yellow flowers
are so thick and fine. But when they are done blossoming the lawn is a
sorry looking sight.

Dandelions do not trouble the hay fields, for where the grass is
allowed to grow tall it soon smothers them.

Boys are often hired to dig dandelion roots out of lawns, and near
large cities poor women may often be seen digging them out for the
sake of the young leaves which, when they first come up in the spring,
make very good “greens.” These people sell them or eat them instead of
spinach. Tender young dandelion leaves are very good indeed, and some
people like them better than spinach.

Dandelion plants have a wise way of protecting their seed children
until the time for flight.

The flower buds come out of the center of the leaf rosette, close to
the ground. They have very short stems and seem to sit right on the
rosette.

[Illustration: 1. A cluster of flowers.

2. One flower (magnified).]

There are a great many flowers in one dandelion head. Each little
yellow part of the dandelion flower head is a separate blossom, and
each separate blossom has one seed case with a seed inside growing to
the bottom of it.

All of these blossoms are shut up at first in a case of green,
leaf-like parts, and form the bud.

[Illustration: The bud.]

As the bud grows older its stem lengthens a little, as you can see
in the picture on page 9—unless it is on a lawn. Then it does not
lengthen; it seems to know the lawn mower will come along and take off
its head if it grows taller, so it stays close to the ground. After a
while the green bud opens, the many little yellow flowers push their
way out, and the dandelion is in bloom.

Towards night the dandelion shuts up again; the tiny yellow flowers
press close together, and the outer covering of green bracts, as they
are called, closes up, too, and shuts them in all snug and safe.

When the dandelion has once closed it does not open again. But its
stem, which was very short, begins to lengthen.

It is a hollow stem, as you know, and has a bitter, milky juice.

[Illustration]

Longer and longer grows the stem with the closed-up flower cluster at
its top. But this wise stem does not stand up. Oh, no, indeed! it lies
down or leans over, concealed by the grass and weeds, unless it grows
on a lawn. Then the wise stem does not lengthen much; it is afraid of
that lawn mower.

If the dandelion is growing among tall grass, the stem will grow very
long indeed; if among short grass it will not grow so long.

By this time you can guess why.

When the seeds are ripe and the silky plumes all nicely formed that
stem stands up!

It stands straight up and looks over the tops of the grasses. Then the
green bracts on the outside turn back, and the silky tufts spread out
and pull themselves free from the remains of the tiny flowers which
have withered and are no longer yellow. They do not fall off when the
flower first closes, but make a little cap to protect the growing
akenes, and when these get ready to open out the cap is pushed off by
them.

[Illustration: Opening out and pushing off the cap.]

The hollow stem stands up, and its lovely silky head of plumed akenes
shines in the sunlight.

There is nothing much prettier in the plant world than this head of
fairy dandelion akenes all ready to fly away.

They stand and shine until a breeze comes along that is strong enough
to dislodge them, then all in a moment they are off sailing through the
air.

The parent plant is not sorry to have them go, for this is what it has
worked so hard to accomplish; and as they float away, if it thinks at
all, it no doubt hopes that each little shining wanderer will alight at
last in a beautiful home of its own with plenty of space and sunlight
and food for its growth.

If there is not breeze enough to carry away the dandelion akenes, when
night approaches or a storm gathers the careful parent plant does not
allow these silky treasures to become soaked and spoiled by moisture.

Each little plume shuts up again! The silky tufts no longer spread out,
and the green bracts, too, turn up and cover them safely as before.
They go to sleep, hoping, no doubt, for better luck next day.

There is no better fun than to watch the dandelions do these things.

When children blow the heads of dandelions away, that is just what the
dandelions want, for it sets all the akenes flying about in the air
above the earth.

The main thing for a dandelion seed is to get started. If it can get
up in the air free from the weeds and grasses, it will be sure to take
quite a journey and will doubtless settle in a new home.

The bitter milky juice of the dandelion very likely protects it from
being eaten by various plant-eating creatures.

This juice is familiar to country children who pick the long stems of
the dandelions, split them, and “curl” the parts in their
mouths.

These pretty stems make very long and fine curls, as every little
country girl knows.

[Illustration]




THISTLES.

[Illustration]

Nobody can help liking thistles—that is, to look at. We do not care to
handle them, nor do they care to have us, which perhaps is why they are
covered all over with such sharp prickles.

The prickles are an intimation to us to let them alone.

They do not want to be handled, and they do not want to be eaten. When
a plant arms itself with thorns or prickles, that is its way of saying
“hands off.” Few creatures besides donkeys eat thistles.

It is said that donkeys are fond of them, and some horses will nibble
at them, but on the whole the thistles are let alone, excepting by the
farmer, who digs them up.

Thistles are much more troublesome than dandelions, for they get into
the hay and grain, and if let alone some kinds will kill out all other
plants and occupy the land themselves.

There are many kinds of thistles. Our large native ones that bear
beautiful showy purple, or pink, or white heads are not, as a rule,
very troublesome to the farmer.

[Illustration: Canada thistle.]

The little Canada thistle is the pest he dreads. That, like the
dandelion, came from Europe. No doubt its seeds were first brought
over—a very few of them—with other seeds from the Old World. But all
the little emigrant asked was to get started.

Once across the sea, it was able to conquer the plants of America
and get a place for itself, for its seeds fly, like those of the
dandelion, and in very much the same way.

The Canada thistle spreads by running roots that live through the
winter, as well as by seeds, so no wonder it quickly found its way far
and wide.

It is for this reason sometimes called the creeping thistle, and
because it is so troublesome it is also named the Cursed thistle.

There is a thistle in Europe which bears a light yellow flower head
and is called the Blessed thistle or the Holy thistle. It has its name
because people used to believe it had power to counteract poison. This
thistle has been brought over from Europe, and is sometimes to be found
in the southern part of the United States, where it has run wild.

Thistle heads are often very large and handsome. Like the dandelion
flower clusters, they are made up of a large number of small blossoms.

Bees and blossoms are very fond of thistle honey, and they can almost
always be found on the blossoms, sucking out the drop of honey which is
to be found in each little flower of the cluster.

At the bottom of each little flower, as in the dandelion, is an akene.
An akene, we remember, is a tight-fitting seed case containing one
seed. The thistle akene also has a plume to fly with.

The thistle plume has no stalk, but grows right from the top of the
akene. The plumed akenes are packed tightly away beneath the scaly
bracts that surround them.

[Illustration]

These bracts in the thistle are generally covered with sharp prickles.
So, although one likes to look at a thistle and inhale its fragrance,
it is not a pleasant flower to handle.

When the thistle seeds are ripe, the prickly covering loosens, and the
akenes come trooping out in a soft, fluffy mass. Away they fly, one by
one, as the breeze dislodges them and carries them off. They are much
more showy than the dandelion akenes, for the plumes are much larger.

[Illustration]

Away they go, this way and that, and after a while the wind blows them
against a tree branch, or a fence rail, or a stone. Then the akene thus
stopped drops off from the plume to the ground. The akene, in this
case, is done sailing about. It has come to rest and very likely will
lie until the next spring before it sprouts.

The plume is not harmed at all when the akene lets go, but at the next
gust of wind flies on, lighter than ever.

One often sees these seedless plumes sailing about in the summer and
fall.

People sometimes gather the heads of large thistles before the seeds
are ripe, pull out the pink part of the flowers, carefully pull off the
prickly bracts, and hang the rest up to dry. The akenes do not then
fall off, but the plumy part fluffs out and makes a pretty pompon with
which the children’s hats can be trimmed.

[Illustration]


MILKWEEDS.

Most of us like milkweeds. They are not so troublesome as the
dandelions and thistles. They generally grow in waste places, along
stone walls, or outside fences, where they do no harm to the crops
but make the roadsides charming. Most kinds of milkweeds have a milky
juice, as their name tells. It is thicker and stickier than the
dandelion juice, and is very disagreeable if one gets it on his fingers.

[Illustration]

This, no doubt, is why the plant makes it that way. It does not wish us
to get its juice on our fingers; it wishes us to let it alone. It also
wishes animals to let it alone and not eat it; and most animals are not
fond of it. This is not true, however, of certain caterpillars.

Towards fall you will generally see the milkweed leaves covered with
bright yellow and black caterpillars that certainly are lovely whether
you think, so or not.

If you take the largest of these caterpillars and put them in a box of
earth with plenty of fresh milkweed leaves to eat as long as they want
to eat (which will not be long), you will see what happens.

Something happens, and you will do well to find out about it.

[Illustration]

Milkweeds have pretty, fragrant flowers that grow together, many in
a bunch, but not close together into a solid head, like the little
dandelion flowers. Each milkweed flower has its own little stem.

Not all of the flowers in a bunch of milkweed go to seed. Generally
only one or two from each bunch do. The rest are crowded out and wither
and fall off, for the milkweed flower develops a very large seed pod
that holds a great many seeds, and there is not room on the stem for
many of these big pods.

The flowers of our common milkweed are pink-purple in color, and the
pods are fuzzy and irregular on the outside, and are shaped as you see
in the picture.

[Illustration]

Inside they are lovely. The pod itself is as smooth and shiny as satin,
and there is a bridge running lengthwise; to this grow the seeds—a
great many in each pod. Each seed has a plume and looks very much like
the thistle akene with its plume. But these seeds have no seed case,
excepting the large pod in which they all lie together. They grow
inside this case, which opens to let them escape. The milkweed seed
looks so much like the thistle akene that you would have to examine it
very carefully to discover the difference.

The milkweed seeds are brown and round and flat, and each has a silky
plume, with no stalk to the plume. The seeds lie packed closely
together in the pod with their plumes unopened, but when they are ripe
the pod splits open down one side and the plumes fluff out.

[Illustration]

Then you will see a pretty sight. From the gap in the pod the pretty,
silky seeds come spilling out. Their plumes touch each other and hold
the seeds together in a soft feathery mass until along comes the
breeze. Then one after another the pretty seeds float away and the
empty pods are left behind.

Sometimes children catch bees in empty milkweed pods. The bees make a
great buzzing in the pod, and it is not fair to keep them long, for it
interferes with their honey-gathering or pollen-collecting. If there is
anything a bee hates, it is to waste time, with so many hungry mouths
at home waiting to be fed.

Like the thistles, when the milkweed seeds become quite dry they often
drop away from their plumes, particularly if they strike against
something when sailing about.

There are a number of species of milkweeds. One common species has
bright, orange flowers, and is called butterfly weed. Its flowers look
a little like bright butterflies, and the butterflies are fond of its
honey.

There is a lovely milkweed in Florida that has large pea-green leaves
with broad pink veins running all through them.

Some species of milkweeds have long, slender, smooth pods, and very
likely you have noticed them along the roadside.

[Illustration]




LETTUCE.

[Illustration: Garden lettuce gone to seed.]

Those who have seen lettuce only on the table, or growing in the early
spring garden or in the green-house, will feel like laughing at the
idea of lettuces flying!

Yet they do fly. At least their seeds do.

Sometimes lettuces look like rosettes growing out of the ground, and
sometimes they look like little cabbages. But that is only the leaves.

If lettuces are let alone and not picked, in time they will “go
to seed”; a stalk will grow up from the middle, with small leaves
on it and a great many little flower heads that look somewhat like tiny
dandelions.

These flower heads are made like those of the dandelion or thistle.

The lettuce has no prickles, but its juice is milky and bitter, and
gets more bitter as the plant grows older. The lettuce flowers have
akenes like the dandelion, and each akene has a plume like that of the
dandelion.

Away fly the pretty plumed akenes, and lettuce is thus sown by the
wayside. But one seldom sees garden lettuce growing, except in gardens;
for it is so tender the strong, rough weeds choke and kill it.

[Illustration: Wild lettuce.]

There is a wild lettuce, however, that has a large number of flower
heads, and of course a great many pretty, silky, tufted akenes. These
lettuces sometimes shine as if they had been snowed upon when their
silky, white plumed akenes first open out.

I advise you to see if you can find some of them next summer. The best
place to look is alongside fences and hedges and in the corners of
pastures.

There is a lettuce so troublesome to the farmer that large sums
of money have been appropriated to exterminate it. It is called
the Prickly Lettuce, because its leaves and stalks are prickly. It
came to this country from Europe. It is quite as destructive to the
farmer’s crops as is the Canada thistle.




[Illustration]

CLEMATIS.

Of course the clematis akenes fly. Nothing so fluffy as they, in the
seed world, could do otherwise.

The wild clematis that grows over the bushes in some swamps is a
beautiful vine with glossy leaves and clusters of pretty white flowers.
After the snowy flowers have gone it is still beautiful, for then each
little akene waves a long, shining, curly plume. The whole vine is
covered with these shining, twining plumes.

But a day comes when they no longer shine. Each curling plume looks
like a mass of down, for its parts have separated and stand out, and we
now see that it is shaped like a feather, a downy fluffy feather. The
whole vine is a soft fluffy mass.

This does not last long, for the akenes leave the parent vine and are
borne aloft on their airy plumes by the wind that scatters them far and
wide.

[Illustration: Clematis gone to seed.]

Some fall upon the right kind of soil, where they are covered by the
leaves of autumn, and lie safely until spring comes. Then they wake up
and grow each into a beautiful clematis vine with shining leaves.

There is a beautiful clematis with large blue-purple flowers that grows
in the mountains of Virginia and in some other places.




ASTERS AND GOLDEN-ROD.

Asters and golden-rod blossom in the fall. Then the country roads are
lovely to walk over, and the fields are as bright as can be with blue
or purple or white asters and yellow golden-rod.

[Illustration: Asters.]

Some kinds of golden-rod and asters blossom in the summer, but most of
them wait until late in the season. They are almost the last flowers to
come and almost the last to go.

When their bright flowers fade they are still pretty. Each
“flower” of the asters is like the dandelion, a cluster of
very small flowers, and the golden-rod flower head is made up of very
many tiny flowers.

Each little flower has its own akene and plume quite like the
dandelion, but a great deal smaller, and in time the clusters that were
flowers become clusters of soft downy plumes.

This state does not last long, for the akenes are blown away by the
wind and sown far and near over field and roadside.

If you brush against the downy aster and golden-rod heads when the
seeds are ripe, the akenes will cling to your clothes like cobwebs and
you will carry them about with you until finally they fall off.

Perhaps that is one way by which the golden-rod and aster seeds travel
about; they cling to animals that pass and so are carried far away. But
they do not cling as well as some other seeds we are soon to know about.

[Illustration: Golden-rod.]




THE WILLOW.

[Illustration: Pussy willow.]

The willow that children know and love the best is the pussy willow. It
grows in damp or swampy places and before the leaves come out in the
spring the “pussies” are seen on the branches. They are little, soft,
silvery pussies, and it is not everybody who knows what they really are.

[Illustration]

Each “pussy” or catkin, as we must call it, is a group of
small flowers, or rather flower-buds, for after the flowers are fully
out the pussies lose their soft, silky appearance and no longer deserve
to be called pussies.

The older catkins are covered with stamens full of yellow pollen
or else with seed pods. For willows bear two kinds of flowers, the
stamen-bearing, or staminate flowers, and the seed-bearing, or
pistillate flowers.

[Illustration: Staminate catkin fully out.]

The staminate flowers grow on one willow tree, and the pistillate ones
on another.

The pollen in the staminate flowers is very abundant and is carried by
the wind or by insects to the pistillate flowers. If you shake a twig
of ripe staminate catkins, your hands and clothes will be covered with
pollen dust.

[Illustration: Pistillate catkin.]

Bees are fond of willow pollen and eagerly gather it in the early
spring. The willow catkin has a tiny drop of nectar at the base of
each little flower, and bees and flies are fond of this and visit the
willows to get it. Of course, as the insects fly from one catkin to
another, they carry pollen from one to another.

After a time the staminate flowers wither and fall, but the pistillate
ones are followed by seed pods, and the stem that bears them lengthens
to make room for the growing pods, and at last when the seeds are ripe
the pods split open and out come the _tiniest_ of little seeds, each
with a tiny plume of down, and away they fly.

There are a great many species of willow, and not all of them are as
pretty as the pussy willow. One reason why the pussy willow is so
pretty is that the catkins appear before the leaves. In some willows
the catkins come with the leaves, and in some they come after the
leaves are fully grown. Many willows have bright red or yellow or green
stems that give color to the landscape even in midwinter.

In all willows the pistillate catkins bear pods that open and let out
fluffy seeds.

[Illustration: Ripe willow catkin.]

The cotton-wood trees are relatives of the willows. Their seeds are so
very downy that when they are ripe the ground beneath the trees will
often be white, as though a light snow had fallen.

It is because the seeds are so abundantly supplied with soft cottony
plumes that the tree is called cotton-wood.

Poplars are also closely related to the willows and, like them, have
fluffy seeds.

In the early summer, if you look in the right place, you will see
plenty of them.

Willow and poplar twigs are very strong and limber, and some kinds are
used to make baskets and chairs and cradles and a great many other
useful things. The slender young twigs are woven together and make very
strong and durable articles.

Since only the long twigs can be used, people get them in large
quantities by cutting off the heads of the trees, when long sprouts
shoot up all around the ends of the cut limbs. Cutting off the tops of
the trees in this way is called pollarding, and a pollarded willow or
poplar is rather a funny sight, particularly after it has had its head
cut off a number of times.

[Illustration: Pollarded willows.]

Willow branches about as large around as one’s finger make very
good whistles in the spring of the year. The sap flowing under the
bark loosens it, so that by pounding the twig the bark can be slipped
off unbroken, the wood beneath cut as desired, and the bark slipped on
again.

[Illustration]

The dotted lines show how the wood should be cut away under the bark.

Willow twigs also make very good switches, and long, ah, very long ago,
when children used to be naughty, willow switches were in great demand.

In these later days children are never naughty I suppose—or is it only
that switching has gone out of fashion?

These switches did not come from weeping willows, though that
certainly would have been a very appropriate name for them.

Weeping willows are large and beautiful trees that came from the
eastern part of Asia. The twigs are very long and slender and hang down
like a veil all about the tree.

[Illustration]

Weeping willows are favorites in parks and pleasure grounds, and it
used to be the fashion to plant them in cemeteries, at the heads of
gravestones.

Everybody who has tried to preserve bird skins, or the skins of small
animals, doubtless knows what salicylic acid is, but not everybody
knows that this is obtained from the bark of willows and poplars. Some
species of willow contain a great deal of the substance from which
salicylic acid is made.

Salicylic acid prevents animal tissue from decaying, and it is also
used as a medicine. It is not poisonous, but is rather unpleasant to
handle, as it is apt to make one sneeze.

The bark of willows is also used in Europe for tanning, instead of oak
or hemlock bark, which is commonly used in this country.

[Illustration]

“Tan bark” is bark that has been ground up and had the “tannin,” or
substance that hardens leather, extracted from it. The tan bark is then
put on roads or walks, or sometimes on city streets, to deaden the
noise. It is often used in the country for banking up houses in the
winter.

Willows grow quickly, and some of those that like wet places are often
planted on sandy shores of lakes or streams, or on banks, that their
roots may bind the sand or loose earth together and so keep the shore
from shifting.

Very often a willow twig can be made to grow by merely sticking the cut
end in damp earth, and many a large willow has thus been planted as a
twig by the hand of a little child.




CATTAILS.

[Illustration: Cattails in bloom.]

[Illustration]

Cattail seeds fly, too! It is surprising to know that cattails blossom.
But they do.

In the early spring, cattails look green instead of brown, and the
thickened green part near the top is made of very, very small flowers
packed tightly together.

The brown velvety part of the cattail succeeds the green flowers, and
is but a collection of tiny seed pods that fluff out with tiny plumes
in the autumn.

There are two kinds of flowers in cattails, as there are in willows,
only in the cattails the two kinds are on the same plant. If you look
at a cattail in its green stage, you will easily find the staminate
flowers growing at the very top of the stalk,—at _A_ in the picture.
Out of these staminate flowers you can shake clouds of yellow pollen.
Below the staminate flowers at _B_ are the pistillate flowers, very
small and packed very closely together. Each one has a seed pod at its
base, and each seed pod when ripe has a tiny plume.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Cattails with ripe seeds.]

Of course the seed pods fly away on the wings of the wind. Being so
small and light, they are sometimes carried a long distance.

A good many, no doubt, are so unfortunate as to fall on dry ground, and
that is the end of them.

But others fall in swamps and ditches, where they grow vigorously
and often fill up the swamp or the ditch so that it becomes a bed of
cattails.

The downy cattail seeds are gathered in some places and made into
mattresses for people to sleep on.




GERANIUMS.

[Illustration]

The bright flowers raised in hothouses or in windows, and that we call
geraniums, do not often bear seed in the house.

In that part of the world where they grow wild, and out of doors in the
summer time, they do. And their seeds are very curious indeed; for they
can not only fly about but can bury themselves in the ground.

[Illustration]

The geranium flower bears five curious seed pods that grow close
together around a common center. Each seed pod has one seed, and when
the seed is ripe the pod splits away from the center-piece. The pod
runs up to a point, as you can see in the picture.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

There is a long feather-like plume packed in the long stem-like part
of the pod, and this comes out when the pod splits away. Then the whole
thing is floated off by the wind. This curious plume curls up like a
corkscrew when dry, and so pushes the seed down into the grass or the
earth where it has fallen. When the plume is made damp by rain or dew
it straightens out.

[Illustration]

At the bottom of the seed case are a few hairs or bristles that point
backward and hold the seed so that it cannot be pulled out of the
ground when the plume curls and straightens, but must always be pushed
farther in.

It is a good plan for every one who has not seen the geranium seed case
try to plant itself, to gather some ripe seeds and lay them on the
earth in a flower pot. Let them get dry, then moisten them, then let
them become dry again, and so on, until one has seen just how they work.

[Illustration]




COTTON.

“Down South” are a great many cotton fields. Cotton was brought to the
United States from China and other far-away places. It did not find its
way here accidentally with other seeds, like the dandelions and Canada
thistles, but was brought on purpose and carefully cultivated.

[Illustration: Ripe cotton bolls.]

A cotton field in early summer is rather a pretty sight. It is covered
with light green little plants in straight rows; they have pretty
leaves and yellowish flowers that soon turn red. These flowers are
about the size of a morning-glory.

In the fall a cotton field is much more interesting. Then the cotton
plants are three or four feet high and have branched out into quite
large bushes. The leaves have withered, but the bushes are covered with
cotton bolls, or pods, out of which are bursting quantities of snowy
white cotton. The field looks as if a skyful of soft little snowballs
had fallen upon it.

The cotton flowers are succeeded by pods, or bolls as they are called,
and these contain black seeds about the size of a white bean. Each seed
when ripe wears a coat of long, soft, white cotton fibers, and when the
bolls split open to let out the seeds, out gush streams of snowy cotton.

[Illustration: An unopened boll.

(½ nat. size.)]

A cotton field is most picturesque during the picking season, when the
negroes, the women with bright kerchiefs over their heads, go into the
fields, pick the cotton, and carry it away in large baskets.

[Illustration: A boll just opened.

(½ nat. size.)]

Each cotton seed is covered with cotton fiber that clings very close
and has to be removed by machinery. The machine that does this is
called a cotton gin, and is a very interesting and wonderful machine.

[Illustration: A seed and its coat of cotton.

(Nat. size.)]

Cotton seeds are cleaned more than once; the first time the long fibers
are pulled off, and this is the best of the cotton. Then the seeds are
cleaned again of less valuable, because shorter, fibers, and finally
of the short fuzzy coat that clings to them after the second cleaning.
The result of the last cleaning is a very inferior cotton, used only
for a few kinds of cheap cloth.

Not all cotton has white fiber. The Nankin cotton, which is grown near
the mouth of the Mississippi River in this country, is naturally of a
light tan color.

Cotton is one of the most useful plants in the world, and a great deal
of attention is given to raising and manufacturing it.

The cotton has to go through a good many processes before it is finally
ready to be spun into thread and then woven into cloth.

Some very useful cotton is not spun into thread, but comes to us in
clean, soft rolls, which we call cotton batting. This is useful for
many household purposes, and when very thoroughly cleaned is used by
doctors in dressing wounds.

A large part of our clothing is made from the cotton that grows on the
seeds of the cotton plant. The plant did not make the cotton for us,
but probably to enable its seeds to be carried away by the wind and
firmly fastened to the ground, when they lodged there. For a cotton
seed clings very tightly to the earth, particularly after it has been
wet.

Cotton seeds are very useful aside from the cotton they are clothed
with. They contain a good deal of oil and are ground in mills, that the
oil may be pressed out. This oil is put to a number of uses, and when
purified is even used instead of olive oil as food. The meal that is
left after the oil has been pressed out makes a valuable fertilizer,
and is also used as food for cattle. Horses will not eat it, but cows
are so fond of it that they will come long distances to the mills in
order to lick up what meal they can find. This is the way its value as
a food for cattle was discovered.

[Illustration]

Cotton-seed meal is bright greenish yellow in color, and as it colors
everything it touches, the cotton-seed mills are rather picturesque to
look at, though not very pleasant to walk about in.

The bark of the root of the cotton plant is used as a medicine. But
though so many parts of this wonderful plant are useful, the cotton
that covers the seeds is the most valuable of all.




OTHER FLY-AWAYS.

[Illustration: Fireweed.]

A great many other plants have plumed seeds, and some have seeds with
cottony coats, but of all the cotton-covered seeds those of the cotton
plant are the only ones with fibers long and strong enough to be spun
and woven.

It would be useless to try to tell about all the fly-away seeds. There
are so many of them one would never get through. But it is great fun to
discover them for ourselves. If we watch through the summer, we shall
find many and many of them.

Quite a number of the grasses have plumes to their seeds, and some of
these plumed grasses are very pretty indeed. We often see them used to
decorate houses, and in Florida one can see very beautiful grass plumes
growing in swamps. Everywhere the fields and woods are full of seed
wanderers that fly about to find a home, and all that any one need do
who wants to see these pretty things is to look about and find them.

[Illustration]




SEEDS THAT FLY WITH WINGS.

MAPLES.


[Illustration]

Maple seeds also fly, but they have no silky or feathery or cottony
plumes. They have wings instead. The fruit of the maple tree is called
a samara and consists of a seed pod with a wing. Usually two pods grow
together, though when thoroughly dry they fall apart.

The wings are thin and light, and the wind sometimes carries them a
long distance. The maple blooms in the spring or early summer, and
though its flowers have only stamens or pistils and no bright petals,
yet they are very pretty.

[Illustration]

Maples, like willows and cattails, often have two kinds of flowers. One
maple tree will often have all staminate flowers, and will look as if
trimmed with fringe, as the staminate flowers have slender stems like
threads.

[Illustration]

The red maple, which blooms early in the spring before its leaves come
out, has bright red fringes. Sometimes these red-flowered trees bloom
in January, in Florida, when the trees and bushes around them are bare,
and you can imagine they make the swamps where they grow look very
bright.

The pistillate flowers are not quite as airy as the staminate ones, but
still they make pretty fringes upon the trees.

The wind blows the pollen from the staminate flowers to the pistillate
ones growing on neighboring trees, and that is why the flowers hang out
on long stems.

Some maples have green fringes and some have yellow ones, but all are
beautiful.

After the flowering season is over, the staminate flowers disappear.
But the pistillate flowers are followed by clusters of samaras, which
are sometimes almost as bright in color and as pretty as the flower
fringes.

When the samaras are ripe, they fall from the tree and are blown about
by the wind. They cannot fly as far as the plumed seeds, but they
sometimes get carried quite a distance.

The seed within the samara often sprouts soon after it falls. You can
see little maple trees starting to grow by the roadside, or even along
city sidewalks or in lawns.

The samaras of the early flowering maple trees fall quite early in the
summer, but there are other maples whose samaras remain on the trees
until autumn.

Maples make beautiful shade trees, and some species grow to a large
size. One of the largest and most beautiful of them is the sugar maple,
which is not only valuable as a shade tree, but yields delicious maple
syrup from its sap.

[Illustration]

The bark of this tree is “tapped,” that is, a hole is bored
through it into the wood beneath, early in the spring, and a little
wooden tube or trough is driven into the hole. A pail is hung or set
beneath to catch the sap as it runs out. Sap runs best when the days
are warm and the nights cold; then there are merry times in the sugar
camps.

The sap is collected in large kettles and boiled to syrup, or until it
hardens into sugar. Just before it is ready to turn to sugar, it makes
delicious “wax.” You pour the hot, thick syrup upon snow,
and when it thickens into a sticky paste you eat it. It is better than
any kind of candy—at least I think so.

A great deal of sugar is made in the New England States, where the
maple grows abundantly, and in the early days the only sugar some of
the people had was maple sugar.

Sometimes the sap of other trees, as birches or elms, is made into
syrup, but none is as abundant or as good as the maple syrup.

The wood of the sugar maple is hard and is valuable for furniture
and other uses. Indeed the wood of most of the maples is prized for
furniture making.

The bird’s eye maple is a very pretty satiny wood dotted over
with round spots that look a little like eyes. It comes from certain
sugar maples whose wood is full of little knotty places.

The curled maple is also a pretty wood with wavy, shining lines made by
irregular streaks in the wood. It is sometimes found in sugar maples
and sometimes in other maples. Maple wood is light in color, and the
bark of the tree is rather smooth. It is gray in most species, and
often has white spots on it.

[Illustration]




ELMS.

The American elm is one of the most beautiful trees in the world, it is
so majestic in size and so graceful in form.

If you do not know the elm tree, get some one to point it out to you at
once, and you will feel that you have made a new friend. It is a very
good thing to make friends with the trees and to learn to know them
when you see them.

[Illustration]

Elm trees have winged seed pods or samaras. The trees are covered with
pretty, short fringes in the springtime—very pretty, but not as airy
and pretty as the maple fringes. The pistillate flowers are followed by
samaras that do not grow two together, and that have the wing growing
around them instead of from one end.

[Illustration]

The bark of the elm is very handsome; it is marked quite regularly and
is easy to recognize. It is a good thing to learn to know a tree by
its bark. The bark of trees is an interesting and beautiful subject for
study.

[Illustration]

The wood of the elm is tough and hard, and is used in building ships
and making wheels, and for other purposes where a tough, hard wood is
required.

There are a number of species of elm trees, but the best-known one is
the beautiful American elm that is everywhere used in parks and for
shade trees. Next to this is the red elm, or slippery elm, whose inner
bark is fragrant and mucilaginous and good to chew. This bark is good
for colds and is sometimes ground up and made into lozenges.

Every country boy lays up a supply of slippery elm bark to dry in the
attic along with his nuts.




ASH TREES.

Ash trees are tall, straight, and handsome, with a very dark-colored
bark, so regularly marked that one soon learns to know it at a glance.
I once knew three of them that stood in an open pasture on the shore of
Lake Ontario.

It was worth going to the pasture in a high wind to see the tall,
beautiful trunks sway as the wind struck them. I used to wish I could
climb up into the tops of them, though it would have been a very unsafe
perch indeed.

You have guessed by now that ash trees have winged seed pods, and so
they have.

[Illustration]

When the little clusters of ash flowers first show in the springtime
they are black, and the tree seems to have black-tipped branches. Soon
the black tips develop into dark green fringes, though these are not
airy and light, like the maple and elm fringes.

The best way for you to find out just how ash blossoms look is—but you
know perfectly well what is the very best way to find out, and I hope
you will take care to do it.

Ash seeds are winged like those of the maples and are called samaras,
but they do not grow two together. Ash trees often bear great numbers
of samaras, more than any other tree. Where ash trees grow near houses,
the samaras often fall on the roofs and fill up the gutters, so that
they have to be cleaned out, sometimes more than once in a season.

[Illustration: Ash samaras.]

The wood of the ash is so very tough and elastic that from all time
it has been used to make bows and spear shafts. Of course it is also
valuable for less warlike uses.

When you read the “One Hoss Shay,” you will find one use to
which ash wood is sometimes put.

The ash tree used to be held sacred by the ancient Norsemen, and some
day you will read beautiful stories about the wonderful ash Ygdrasil.

The small tree we call “mountain ash” is not an ash at all,
and it has, as you know, red berries instead of samaras.




PINES.

Pine trees bear cones, and cones do not fly. But if you examine the
scales of the cones, you will find a winged seed under each. When the
cones are ripe the scales open and the seeds drop out and are caught by
the wind and floated away.

[Illustration]

There are a great many species of pine trees. The seeds of some are
large and sweet and are sold as pine nuts. These trees do not grow in
this country, however, and we should have to go to South America, or to
Asia, or western Europe to find pine trees from which we could gather
nuts.

[Illustration]

Squirrels gather nuts from all the pine trees, however, for they are
not as particular as we, and think them all good. They are very clever
at gathering cones, gnawing off the scales and getting out the seeds.

Pine trees, like the maples and elms, have two kinds of—not exactly
flowers, but something answering to them. The ovules, or young seeds,
are borne under the scales of the cones, and the stamens are in
catkins. Sometimes these catkins are very large, and they bear a great
deal of pollen which the wind carries to the cones.

A pine forest is always a sweet and delightful place. When the sun
shines on the trees they fill the air with fragrance.

Pine trees used to grow all over the northern part of the United
States, but they make very valuable timber, and so have been carelessly
cut down and the forests destroyed, until now in many places there are
almost no pine trees left.

This was a great mistake, as the people now know. The white pine
of the North gave a soft white wood that could be easily carved or
“turned,” and it was used more extensively than any other
wood as long as the forests lasted.

A large part of the South is still covered by forests of yellow pine,
whose wood is dark, hard, and valuable for building purposes.

The pine forests of the South also yield large quantities of tar,
resin, and turpentine, and it is sad to see the forests being
carelessly destroyed each year. The trees are cut for their sap, from
which turpentine and other products are made, but if the same trees are
cut three years in succession they die.

The turpentine makers, however, cut them as long as they will yield
sap, because it is easier to stay in one place three years than to move
their camps to a region of fresh trees. This is wrong, and will result
in destroying the valuable Southern pine forests in a short time.

We should take care of the trees, for they are our good friends.
Besides providing wood for all sorts of uses, they protect the earth,
keep it moist, and prevent the streams from drying up. In many places
the farming land has been destroyed, because the forests were cut down
when the land all about dried up, so that nothing of value to man could
grow on it.

With proper management trees can be cut for use without destroying the
forests.

[Illustration]




SEEDS THAT FLY WITHOUT WINGS OR PLUMES.


Poppy seeds have no wings and no plumes, and yet they are carried far
and wide by the wind. That is because they are so very small and so
very light. They look more like dust than seeds.

[Illustration: Poppy pod.]

The poppy pod is like a cup with a cover on, but around the edge, just
below the cover, is a row of small holes, each covered by a lid. These
lids do not open until the poppy seeds are ripe; then they do, and the
fine seeds can get out of the holes. But _how_ do they get out? They
cannot move of themselves, but the wind sways the poppy pod this way
and that on its long stalk, and the little seeds are shaken out only to
be caught by the wind and blown away.

Perhaps you think that is not a very sure way for the seeds to escape,
but if you examine a poppy head that has been ripe for some time you
will find scarcely a seed in it, so it proves to be a better way than
it looks.

Nature’s way is generally the best way to accomplish an object.

Poppies are often seen growing by the roadside or in the garden, far
from the flower beds; that is because the wind has blown the seeds to
these places.

In England the wheat fields are often gay with scarlet poppies, which
have, no doubt, been sown with the wheat. They are beautiful to look
at, though the farmer does not enjoy seeing them in his wheat.

Opium is obtained from the juice of the partly ripened seed pods of
some kinds of poppies. Opium is very valuable as a medicine, but it has
to be used with great care, as it is also a powerful poison.

[Illustration]

A valuable oil is expressed from the seeds of the opium poppy. This oil
is used for illuminating purposes in some parts of the world, and also
for soap-making. The finer quality is used as food, instead of olive
oil, in countries where oil is eaten instead of butter, and it is also
used in grinding artists’ colors.




OTHER SEEDS THAT ARE MOVED BY THE WIND.


[Illustration]

Many, many other plants have seeds or seed pods that can be carried
away by the wind. The fields and hedges are full of plumes and winged
seeds, and of seeds so light as to be readily carried away without
special plumes or wings.

At the top of this page is the picture of a trumpet vine. When you have
the chance, examine the seeds in the pod of the trumpet vine and see
how they are enabled to fly away.

Hops are pretty plants, and useful ones as well, and if you examine hop
seeds—you will see—what you will see!

Some clovers have seeds that fly. See if you can find them.

[Illustration]

Linden trees are covered with clusters of white sweet-scented flowers
in the early summer. Each cluster of flowers is attached in a curious
way to a wing, and often the whole cluster, with its wing, falls
together and is blown to some distance by the wind. When the lindens
are in bloom you will know it by the humming of the bees, for they are
very fond of linden honey, and the trees often sound like an enormous
beehive, there are so many bees about them.

It would take altogether too long to tell about all the seeds that are
carried by the wind, but you can find a great many of them without
being told; and that, after all, is the best way. At the bottom of this
page are the seed pods of the cow parsnip, a very large, coarse, but
rather handsome weed, often found in the corners of pastures. You can
see that its seed pods fly.




TUMBLEWEEDS.

Tumbleweeds _are_ funny! They do not fly in the air, but they go
scurrying over the surface of the earth. They grow on the Western
plains and in other places, and sometimes get to be as large as a
bushel basket.

[Illustration]

They are not very interesting until they begin to tumble. This happens
in the fall of the year.

The plants grow like ordinary little bushes in the summer and bear a
great many clusters of small flowers. Late in the season the leaves
fall off, and the stems of the plant curl over and make a ball of it.
The seeds do not fall yet; they can be seen in pretty brown clusters
inside the ball.

Along comes a gust of wind; the tumbleweed, all rolled up and quite dry
now, breaks loose from the earth and away it goes, head over heels,
rolling like a wild thing across the prairies.

It is very funny to see a prairie full of tumbleweeds racing along.
They look as if they were playing tag. When a train passes, those near
the track are caught in the draught and off they start, head over
heels, as fast as they can. They look exactly as if they were chasing
the train.

The tumbleweed does not send its seed children out alone into the
world; it goes along and spills them over the prairies, as it tumbles
about; for, after a while, the seeds get thoroughly ripe and fall off.
If you were to see the tumbleweeds rolling about over the prairies
in the fall, you would not wonder there are so many of them growing
everywhere in the summer.

There are several kinds of tumbleweeds in the West. One of them is
called the Russian thistle, though it is not a thistle. It came from
Europe and has proved to be the very worst weed the farmer has to deal
with.

It tumbles about in the fall, rolling far and wide over the prairies
before the high winds. In a few years it has become such a nuisance
that large sums of money are spent by the government to exterminate it.
In some places the school children have been taught to recognize it and
to pull it up wherever they see it growing.

[Illustration]




WANDERERS THAT CLING

BURDOCKS.


Seeds have other ways of going about besides being blown by the wind.
One way is to fasten on to anything or anybody that passes and get
carried to some other place.

[Illustration]

Burdocks do this. Burdocks grow in dooryards if they get a chance,
and in fence corners and pastures and along roadsides, and in fact
almost anywhere. They are sturdy weeds and often grow quite large. In
“The Ugly Duckling,” Hans Andersen tells us about them.

“In a sunny spot stood a pleasant old farmhouse, circled all
about with deep canals; and from the walls down to the water’s
edge grew great burdocks, so high that under the tallest of them a
little child might stand upright.”

Like the dandelions and Canada thistles, the burdocks came from Europe,
and a great many people wish they had stayed at home. That is because
of their burrs, which are a nuisance in the fall of the year.

Everybody knows what burrs are. They stick fast to the clothes of
people and get on the tails and manes of horses, where they must cause
a great deal of discomfort, and where it is a great deal of work to
pick them out. They get upon the tails of cows, too, and the fleeces
of sheep, and dogs get them on their ears. The reason is this: the
burrs are full of seed pods. The burdock flower head is, like the
dandelion, made up of a great many tiny flowers, and each flower has a
close-fitting pod containing one seed, or an akene, as we have learned
to call it.

The head of flowers is covered by stiff green bracts, and at the end
of each bract is a hook. These hooks are soft when the flowers are
in blossom, and they do not catch fast to things. But when the seeds
ripen, the bracts grow hard and stiff, and so do the hooks at the end.

[Illustration]

Now, when an animal or a person comes along and brushes against these
ripe burrs, the strong hooks catch; the burr, full of ripe akenes, is
pulled from the plant and is carried away. It is easy to guess why this
happens.

When one tries to pull a ripe burr from the clothes, it falls all to
pieces and the akenes spill out. Then each hook has to be pulled out
separately, and very likely each one will prick the fingers.

Children sometimes pick the burrs before they are ripe, and stick
them together to make baskets and other things. Then the burrs do not
fall to pieces nor prick the fingers much. The burdock has a rank,
disagreeable odor that clings to the fingers a long time after the
burrs have been handled. It is not easy even to wash it off.

Children often pick ripe burrs and throw them at each other. Some think
this is funny, and some think it is naughty.

Burdocks yield a valuable medicine; so they are useful as well as
troublesome.

[Illustration]




COCKLEBURS AND SAND SPURS.

Cockleburs are covered with hooks, too, but they are much uglier than
burdocks, for their seed pods are very hard and are covered on the
outside with stiff, strong hooks that prick like needles.

When one walks among cockleburs, he soon stops to pick them off, for
they hurt so, he cannot bear it.

Sand spurs are even worse than cockleburs. They are the seed coverings
to a kind of grass.

[Illustration: Cockleburs.]

In Florida this grass grows in tufts and spreads out close to the
ground. Some of its stalks are covered with sand spurs that, like the
cockleburs, are hard and are covered, not with hooks, but with very
hard spines. These spines stick out in all directions and readily
fasten upon whomever or whatever comes along, when they leave the
parent grass and are carried away. After a time they are picked off
and thrown on the ground, or they fall off, and that is their way of
traveling to find a place to grow.

Dogs often get them in their feet, and then they have a hard time
picking them out, for of course the poor things cannot walk with sand
spurs between their toes.

There was once a dog that hated sand spurs and loved people so much
that when any one came near him with sand spurs on his clothes, he
would at once begin to pick them off, and the expression with which he
jerked them out of his mouth showed very plainly what he thought of
sand spurs.

[Illustration: Sand spurs.]




TICK TREFOIL.

When walking in the woods in the late summer we sometimes find queer
jointed little pods, like unfinished pea pods, clinging to our clothes.

[Illustration]

These come from plants that belong to the Pea family and are called
Tick Trefoil. There are nearly two dozen kinds of them, and sometimes
they seem to be everywhere in the woods and thickets.

The pods are like pea pods, only that they are jointed, and the joints
break apart, so that each may be carried away separately. Each joint
contains a little pealike seed.

The outside of the pod seems fuzzy, and it clings very closely to
whatever it touches. If we look at the fuzz with a magnifying glass, we
shall find it made up of innumerable little hooks.

The hairs that cover the pod are turned up at the end to form little
hooks, very delicate, but able, when there are so many of them, to
hold on very tightly.

They seem to snuggle down into the cloth they touch, so that it is
difficult to pick them off, and the joints all separate when we try to
remove them, so that each one has to be taken off separately.

Another plant whose seed pods are covered with hooked hairs is the
sweet-scented bedstraw. This is a pretty little plant that spreads
about on the ground. Its flowers are small and greenish, but the whole
plant when in bloom has a pretty lace-like effect as we find it in the
woods very often growing about fallen logs.

[Illustration: Sweet-scented bedstraw.]

Its seed pods are small and, like the tick trefoil, are covered with
hairs that, under the magnifying glass, are seen to be hooked.

The enchanter’s nightshade is another little plant whose seed
pods are covered with hooked hair. It is as pretty as its name and is
to be found in damp woods.

There is a tall leafy kind that grows sometimes two feet high and is
topped with numerous branches of small white flowers. As the flower
stem lengthens, the flowers continue to unfold at the tip, while lower
down are the many little seed pods, shaped like little tennis racquets.

The prettiest enchanter’s nightshade, however, is a little fairy
that sometimes grows on decaying logs. It is often not more than three
or four inches high and ends in a branch of pretty little white flowers
with bright red calyx lobes. After these dainty blossoms come the
little hook-haired, racquet-shaped seed pods.

[Illustration]

Look for enchanter’s nightshade the next time you go to the woods
in the summer time. Below is a picture of the large one.




STICK-TIGHTS.

Stick-tights are troublesome to us, and we call them very disagreeable
names, such as beggar ticks and beggar lice. But they are really not
bad at all and are quite pretty. If they stick to us, that is our fault
quite as much as theirs, for we should keep away from them if we are
unwilling to carry them about.

They cling to whatever comes along, because that is their way of
traveling about. They cannot walk or creep or crawl or jump; neither
can they fly very far nor move in any other way, excepting as they are
carried.

You know how they look—so [Illustration: Stick-tight plant.] Of course
this little brown, flat object with horns is an akene. Inside it is a
seed. The two horns at the top are able to fasten it quite tightly to a
woolen dress or a sheep’s fleece. If you look carefully, you will see
little hard teeth on the edge of the stick-tight that help it to cling.
On one species of stick-tight these teeth point backward, like the
barbs of a fishhook, and that kind sticks very tightly.

Stick-tight plants blossom in the summer time. The greenish-yellow
flowers are clustered in heads like the dandelion flowers, and like
those each stick-tight flower has an akene at the bottom. These akenes
grow much larger than those of the dandelion, and they have the two
horns on their heads.

The akenes stand on a flat cushion, just as the dandelion akenes do,
but these do not wait for the wind to blow them away, though, if
nothing comes along to pull them loose, they in time become very dry
and fall out, and then the wind often carries the light little things
some distance.

But their favorite method of traveling is by stagecoach, and if you
happen along at the right time they will take you for their stagecoach,
and let you carry them to a new place. Sometimes the plants grow so
closely together that in passing through them one becomes quite covered
with the little brown things, and it is a long and tiresome task to
pick them out.

They, too, get on the tails and manes of horses, and the tails of cows,
the coats of dogs, and the fleeces of sheep; but they are not nearly as
troublesome to these creatures as are the burdocks.

There are several species of stick-tights, or beggar ticks, as they are
more generally called.

Some have rather large flower heads, with the outer flowers each
provided with a long, broad yellow petal. These are often called wild
sunflowers, because they look something like a little sunflower.

There is a plant called Spanish needles, very closely related to the
stick-tights, and that has four horns to its seed pod.

The burr marigold, which grows in wet places, and whose greenish flower
heads are round like a marble, is also related to the stick-tights,
and, like the Spanish needles, has four horns.

A great many plants have these little horned seed cases, and when you
go about the country in the fall of the year you will be certain to
make the acquaintance of some of them. The plants with horned seed pods
wish their seeds to get out of the dense thickets in which they usually
grow, and they do what they can to help them.

[Illustration]




AGRIMONY AND OTHER WEEDS.

In the fall of the year and towards the end of summer we find a great
many weeds in the woods and along the roads, sending their seeds out
into the world by means of stout hooks, or else hooked hairs or sharp
spines.

[Illustration]

The agrimony is one of these. It is a common, rather pretty plant
with yellow flowers, and it has a burr or seed pod, armed with hooked
prickles around the waist, so to speak.

After a walk in the country through woods and fields, in the autumn,
one will be likely to find a number of little things clinging to
one’s clothes. Instead of merely shaking or picking them off and
throwing them away, carefully collect them, and when there is time look
at them.

You will very likely find yourself decorated with a number of different
kinds of seeds or seed pods, that vainly hoped in you to find a means
of traveling to new and better places of growth.

All these little brown things are disappointed, or would be if they
could feel disappointed. But you can profit by their misfortune, and,
by carefully examining the little wanderers, can learn a great many
interesting and wonderful truths about the plant world in its effort to
scatter its seeds.

[Illustration]




FLAX.

The flax is a very useful plant, for the fibers of its stems are long
and strong, and are spun into thread and then woven into linen.

Besides this, the seeds are useful. They contain an oil which is
pressed out and is known as linseed oil. It is used a great deal by
painters in mixing their paints.

When flaxseeds are wet they become very sticky on the outside. A
jelly-like substance covers them, and this it is which we drink in
“flaxseed tea” to cure our colds.

[Illustration: Flax.]

You can easily see this jelly-like covering by putting a few flaxseeds
in a few drops of water and leaving them there a little while.

You can readily see that when the flaxseeds are shed in the field and
are met by the rain, they would stick to the feathers, feet, and beaks
of birds that came to eat the seeds. If the birds flew to another
place, as they often would, to clean their plumage, they would rub off
the flaxseeds, that mean-time had become dry again, and often the
seeds would drop off, as the bird moved about. In this way they would
get planted in new places. No doubt the sticky covering to the wet seed
also helps to anchor it to the ground and keep it from blowing away
when once it has settled down on the earth.

The flax plant that we find so useful is not wild. It is carefully
cultivated in many parts of the world and has been cultivated for so
long a time, and in so many places, that nobody knows where it first
came from. It is a pretty plant, that bears bright blue flowers.

Why do you not buy a penny’s worth of flaxseeds at the drug store
and plant them in your garden and become acquainted with this very
interesting and beautiful little plant?

[Illustration]




[Illustration]


MISTLETOE.

The mistletoe grows on trees. It has no roots of its own, but attaches
itself to the bark of the tree and sucks out the sap.

Since it lives up in trees, its seeds must be able to find lodgment in
these high places; and this the birds help them to do. The mistletoe
has light green leaves; it grows in bunches and bears white berries.

The seeds in the berries are covered by a viscid substance, and when
the birds eat the berries, some of these seeds will be apt to cling to
them and be left on the branches of some other tree.

If the seeds happen to get swallowed, that does not hurt them, for they
are not digested, but are passed out just as they were swallowed, and
they then often fall upon the tree branches, where they can grow.

The English mistletoe very often grows upon the oak tree, and from very
early times the plant was reverenced by the people, and particularly
by the Druids, who used it in their religious observances. A survival
of this old superstition about the mistletoe is found in its use to-day
at Christmas time.

[Illustration]




OTHER PLANTS WITH STICKY SEEDS OR SEED PODS.

Quite a number of plants prepare sticky coverings to their seeds or
seed pods, in order to help the seeds get away.

[Illustration]

The squirting cucumber is one of the most curious of these. It grows
wild in southern Europe, but is sometimes seen in gardens in this
country, not because of its beauty, but because it is so curious. It is
a hairy plant and not at all pretty, but when its hairy cucumber-shaped
seed pods are ripe something funny happens. The pod falls from the
vine, and through the round hole left when it fell away from its stem,
that which is inside the pod is shot out with violence. Out fly seeds
and a quantity of sticky liquid. If a bird happens to be about when
this happens, he will make haste to get far from such a queer-acting
plant; and if he was shot by it, he will carry some of the sticky seeds
with him; or he may get the seeds attached to him after they have been
shot out.

You see the squirting cucumber has two ways of sending its seeds on
their journey into the world. It shoots them some distance at the
start and also provides them with a sticky covering, so that they may
have a chance to get carried still farther.

Some plants have sticky hairs growing to their seed pods. We know that
a good many plants have their pods covered with hairs which are hooked
at the ends. Well, some are covered with hairs that have a drop of
viscid substance at the tip, instead of a hook; these hairs fasten on
quite as firmly as if they were hooked.

The pretty little twin flower, or ground vine, as it is sometimes
called, has a pair of scales growing about its seed pod, and these
scales are covered with sticky hairs.

The soft little mouse-ear chickweed, that grows everywhere in waste
places, has several species which are covered all over with fine hairs
which have a sticky tip. When the plant withers, it is easily pulled
from the ground, and as it remains sticky, even after withering, the
whole plant is often carried away by passing animals or people, and its
seeds shed in some distant place.

See if you can find some plants that have their seeds carried because
some part of the plant is sticky. There are not a great many of them;
still, if you look long enough, you will be sure to find some.

[Illustration: The twin flower.]




WANDERERS THAT FLOAT.

Some kinds of plants live in the water or on the edge of it. These
often have seeds or seed pods light enough to float. You can generally
see little seeds floating about on ponds, if you take the trouble to
look.

[Illustration: Cocoanut palms.]

Into these ponds come ducks or herons or other waterfowl. The birds
come to find something to eat, and as they swim or wade about they come
in contact with the wet seeds that cling to them. After a time the
birds, bearing the seeds on plumage, beak, or feet, fly to another pond
or marsh, and as they alight the seeds are floated off.

The wind then blows them to the shore, or else in time, if they live in
the water, they sink to the bottom and sprout.

The cocoanut is a seed that is surrounded by a strong shell and a
thick coat of fiber that protects it from the water and also makes it
light.

The nut inside this thick overcoat is hollow when ripe, excepting
for a watery liquid that we call the milk of the cocoanut. As we see
cocoanuts in stores, the outer coat has been taken off.

Cocoanuts grow near the tops of tall cocoanut palms, and these palms
are fond of standing on the seashore. When the nuts get ripe they often
fall in the sea and are carried long distances by the ocean currents.
In this way, no doubt, many a coral island has received its lovely
fringe of cocoanut palms.

The nuts are floated to these little islands and washed into crevices
on them, where they lodge and in time grow into stately trees.

The cocoanut palm is a very important tree in tropical countries. The
nuts are used as food, and a valuable oil is obtained from them. Cocoa
oil is used for illuminating and also for making salves.

The thick fiber that surrounds the nut is strong and tough and is made
into cloth, matting, brushes, baskets, coarse rope, and a number of
things. Matting is used in some hot countries to make the sides of
houses, and the cocoanut fiber is useful to thatch roofs.

The wood of the tree is hard and durable and is made into many
household articles. The hard shell of the nut makes good cups and
dishes. So you see the cocoanut tree affords almost everything the
people in the hot countries need.

They make their houses and furnish them from it, they get food and
drink from it, for the milk of the cocoanut is a very pleasant
beverage, and they use the oil to light their abodes at night. No
wonder the people value this noble tree very highly.

[Illustration]




SEEDS THAT ANIMALS LIKE TO EAT.


[Illustration]

THE HICKORY.


The meat of the hickory nut is a seed. The hickory tree bears two kinds
of blossoms. Like the willow, it has staminate catkins and also bears
pistillate flowers, from which grow nuts. Some hickory catkins are
very long and slender and make pretty green tassels on the trees in
the spring. Hickory nuts are good to eat, and you may wonder how these
delicious nuts, that many creatures are fond of, ever get a chance to
grow.

Squirrels are fond of nuts, and they are generally on hand when the
nuts are ripe.

[Illustration: Young hickory nuts.]

The green nuts have an outer covering that splits open when the nut
is ripe and lets it fall to the ground. Of course when a squirrel has
eaten a nut, that is the end of it. But squirrels are good housekeepers
and store away nuts in holes in the trees or in the ground. Chipmunks
do the same, and some birds, as nutcrackers and blue jays, hide nuts
in the same way. Often these nuts are forgotten, or else the little
creature that hid them may die or be killed. Then the nuts that have
been put in the ground have nothing to do but grow when spring warms
the earth.

You see they have been planted by the little nut lovers, that certainly
had no intention of planting them. No doubt a great many nut trees get
started in this way.

Hickory nuts are often called “walnuts” in New England. The
hickory tree belongs to North America, and before this continent was
discovered only the Indians enjoyed hickory nuts. Now they are sent to
England, and indeed all over the world.

The wood of the hickory is hard, tough, and flexible and is very
valuable.

Andrew Jackson was called “Old Hickory” because of his unyielding
nature, and when you study the history of the United States, or read
the life of Jackson, you will not wonder that he was so named.

Hickory switches were used long ago when children were naughty; they
were preferred to willow, because they did not break so easily.

A better use to put hickory to is to burn it. Hickory logs make a very
hot and beautiful fire, and hickory is one of the best of woods to burn
in fireplaces.

[Illustration]




WALNUTS AND BUTTERNUTS.

Black walnuts grow on large, handsome trees of very hard, fragrant,
dark-colored wood. Walnut wood used to be prized more highly than it is
to-day for furniture and the inside finish to houses. It takes a fine
polish but grows rather dark and somber-looking with age.

The black walnut is a native of the eastern part of North America. It
belongs to the same family as the hickory and, like that, bears two
kinds of flowers.

[Illustration: Ripe walnuts.]

The nuts have hard, thick, black shells, and also a softer outer
covering, or rind, that is very bitter and disagreeable to the taste,
and that stains the fingers a dark brown.

The “meat,” or kernel, of the walnut is very oily, and some
people do not like it because of its rather strong flavor. Squirrels
are fond of walnuts, however, and often plant them in the way we have
seen.

The English walnut is an Asiatic tree belonging to the same family,
which has been cultivated in Europe and, to a small extent, in this
country. Its nut is larger than the black walnut, has a thin shell
and a large, sweet kernel. The nut is delicious and a great favorite
at Christmas time. It is sometimes picked green and pickled, and some
people are very fond of pickled walnuts.

The nut yields an abundance of valuable oil, and the wood of the tree
is very beautiful and useful for many purposes, one of which is to
finish houses on the inside, and another to make gunstocks.

There is another tree belonging to the same family that grows in
America and looks very much like the black walnut tree. It is the
butternut. Butternut wood is valuable, and butternuts have sweet, oily
kernels that most people like. The flowers, of course, are like those
of the walnut.

[Illustration: Butternuts.]

A brown dye is made from the inner bark of the butternut tree, and also
a medicine is obtained from it.

During the War of the Rebellion the Southern soldiers were often
dressed in homespun clothes dyed by the bark of the butternut, and on
this account they were called “butternuts.”




THE CHESTNUT.

[Illustration: Chestnut flowers.]

The chestnut is a very large and beautiful tree that grows abundantly
in some parts of New England and over the Alleghany Mountains. Children
always know the chestnut trees, if they live near them.

Like the hickory and walnut, the chestnut has its staminate flowers in
catkins, but these are white instead of green, and give the chestnut
a very handsome appearance when they cover it with airy plumes in the
early summer.

The nuts grow in prickly burrs, two or three in a burr. When the nuts
are ripe in the fall, the burrs open to let them out. As everybody
knows, they have a thin shell and a sweet kernel. They are sometimes
boiled and sometimes eaten raw.

Squirrels, chipmunks, and some birds are fond of them and are often the
means of planting them.

Chestnut wood is soft and has rather a coarse, loose grain. It is used
largely for fence rails, cheap shingles, and railroad ties.

Chestnuts grow in some parts of Europe and Asia, and there is one kind
that bears a nut as large as a black walnut. This nut is not as sweet
as our chestnuts, but it is extensively used as food in some parts of
Europe. The people go in families to gather the nuts, and prize them as
we prize wheat and corn.

[Illustration]




OTHER EDIBLE SEEDS.

[Illustration: Hazelnuts.]

There are other nuts, as the pecan, whose tree belongs to the Hickory
family and grows wild in the southern part of the United States;
the beechnut, which grows on a stately tree of our forests; and the
hazelnut, that grows on bushes in thickets near streams sometimes, or
on the borders of woods.

But squirrels, chipmunks, birds, and such folk are not the only ones
that plant seeds. Some ants do. Indeed ants are great hands to plant
seeds. They do not take the hard nuts, but rather the seeds of certain
grasses and other plants that bear rather small seeds. The ants carry
the seeds into their holes, where they sometimes eat only one part of
the seed, not enough to hurt it in the least, and so the seeds, buried
in the ant-hills, are able to grow.

Ants often drop the seeds they are carrying and lose them, and so the
road to the home of the seed-eating ants is often grown over by plants
the ants have sown.

[Illustration: Beechnut.]




BERRIES.

Some berries, such as raspberries and strawberries, are so good they
seem to grow on purpose to be eaten. Very likely they do.

It is quite necessary for the blackberry and raspberry bushes to have
their seeds sown at some distance from the parent plants, and it is
also an advantage to strawberries to have their seeds dispersed. So
what is better than to get the help of the birds?

To this end the berries are sweet and juicy when ripe, and they are
bright in color, so that the birds can easily find them. A bird often
picks a berry and carries it somewhere else to eat, and often it eats
only a part and leaves the rest, which falls to the ground.

[Illustration]

All berries have seeds in them or outside of them. Strawberries have
the little seeds on the outside, as you can easily see.

[Illustration: Bunchberries.]

Gooseberries, currants, and grapes have the little seeds inside, but,
whichever way it is, some of the seeds will be left or scattered about
by the birds that eat the berries. If some of the seeds are swallowed,
that does not seem to hurt them; like the mistletoe seeds, they are
able to sprout after having been eaten by a bird.

Birds eat a great many kinds of berries that we never think of eating.
Notice how often in the late summer and the autumn you will see bright
red or blue, or black, or white berries shining out from the leaves or
bare branches of the wayside hedges. All of these are eaten by birds
and carried away to new growing places.

Not all birds eat berries or seeds. Watch the birds and see if you can
find out which kinds eat berries and seeds.




CHERRIES.

There is no need of describing cherries, as everybody knows them well.

[Illustration]

The birds are so fond of ripe cherries that we sometimes have
difficulty in getting our share before the robins and thrushes have
taken all. Birds frequently fly away with the cherries, eat the pulp,
and drop the stone, which, of course, contains a seed, and this seed
then often sprouts and grows into a cherry tree. We sometimes find good
cherries growing in hedges and thickets, far from the orchard; these
have been planted there by the birds.

[Illustration]

The sweet cherry is not a native of this country, but was brought here
from Europe. We have a number of wild cherries, however, whose fruit
we do not esteem, but the birds are fond of it, and they are the means
of planting a good many wild cherry trees over the country.

Plums, peaches, and apricots are delicious fruits with hard-shelled
seeds. The fruit is gathered, the pulp eaten, and the stone thrown
away. We do not eat the seed of the plum, peach, and cherry, as we do
that of the hickory and butternut. We throw it away, and thus disperse
the seed children of these fruit trees.

The birds spread the seeds of the wild plums as they do those of the
cherries. The kernels of all these seeds are bitter and contain a very
poisonous substance.

Cherry trees have beautiful white blossoms that come early in the
spring, and the peach trees have lovely pink blossoms. The peaches
bloom the earliest of all, and as their flowers come out before the
leaves, they turn the world into a maze of pink beauty in the parts
where the peach orchards are.

[Illustration: Wild plum.]




APPLES.

Apples have tough cores in which their somewhat delicate seeds are
protected. When we eat apples we throw the cores away. We now know that
this is just what the apple wants.

[Illustration]

If the core is tossed into a hedge by the roadside, its seeds may get a
chance to sprout, and indeed they often do, for in the country we often
come upon apple trees in out-of-the-way corners, where they were not
planted by man on purpose.

Apples do not grow wild in this country, excepting crab apples. No
doubt the birds carry away the ripe crab apples and drop the cores.

[Illustration]

Pears and quinces have cores like the apples, and they are not natives
of this country, but were brought here because of their delicious
fruit. Sometimes we find them growing wild, and we know how this
happened.

The next time we get a chance let us look for the fruit trees the birds
have planted. There are a good many wild fruits that the birds are fond
of, and whose seeds they are in the habit of dispersing over broad
sections of country.

[Illustration]




SEEDS THAT ARE SHOT AWAY.

OXALIS.

Some plants have a way of shooting their seeds out of the pods. You
know about the squirting cucumber.

[Illustration: Oxalis.]

The little “sheep-sorrel,” or yellow-flowered oxalis, that
grows everywhere in the fields and gardens, has a way of shooting off
its seeds when they are ripe.

There is an elastic covering over each seed, and when the pod opens,
this covering splits and suddenly curls up, with force enough to send
the seed quite a distance.

The leaves of the oxalis are sour, and children sometimes eat them.

A very powerful poison can be extracted from them, which is called
oxalic acid, and sometimes salt of lemons, but there is not enough of
this poison in the leaves to make them harmful to eat. The poison when
obtained in large quantities is useful in the manufacture of calico,
where it is used in printing the colors, and it is also sometimes used
in a diluted form to clean metal work.

Be sure to look for the seed pods of the oxalis; they stand up like
little candles and are very pretty. Gather some that are almost ripe
and see how they shoot their seeds.

[Illustration]




WITCH-HAZEL.

This little tree blossoms in the fall of the year. After the leaves are
gone, and sometimes after the snow has come, it stands in the edge of
the woods dressed in a fairy costume of yellow lace-like flowers. After
the flowers come the pods. They are very hard and horny and do not
ripen until the next fall.

[Illustration]

It is fun to gather ripe witch-hazel pods, for when they have been in
the house a little while and have become thoroughly dry they “go
off.”

You may be sitting by the table reading, when pop!—a hard, shining
little black seed strikes you in the face. It is the witch-hazel
beginning its cannonade. Pop!—spat!—crack!—the battery has opened,
and the seeds are flying with great force in all directions. They are
sometimes shot several yards.

[Illustration]

Of course in the woods this shooting is intended to start the seed
children on their journey in the world.

The witch-hazel pod bursts open, and the edges turn in and press
against the smooth seeds with great force, so that when they leave the
pod they fly as though shot out of a sling. Get some witch-hazel pods
and see how they do it.

Another name for witch-hazel is hamamelis, and from the bark is made
a medicine which is put upon bruises. A forked twig of witch-hazel is
sometimes used as a divining rod to find where to dig for water, or for
gold or silver or other metals. The rod is held in the fingers of the
diviner, who walks about, and wherever the rod turns and points down it
is supposed to be the place to dig.

Divining rods are not much used in these days. People are not as
superstitious, in some ways, as they used to be, and they know the rod
cannot help them.

[Illustration]




TOUCH-ME-NOT.

The touch-me-not, or snap-weed, is a delicate little plant that grows
in wet places. Its yellow flowers are airily poised on slender stems,
and the seed pods are very curious.

If one of them is touched, it goes off with a suddenness that is
startling, until one gets used to it.

[Illustration: A pod that has snapped.]

When the pods are ripe they shoot the seeds out in all directions, and
if you disturb a tangle of touch-me-nots in late summer you can hear
the seeds popping on all sides.

There is a violet that shoots the seeds out of its pod, and the wild
geranium pod slings its seeds to some distance by suddenly curling up
on its long stalk.

A good many seed pods have this interesting habit, but I doubt if you
would discover that some peas and beans do this unless you were told.

The lupine, which belongs to the Pea family, shoots off its seeds by
twisting the dry pod, as it opens to let them out. Even our garden
sweet peas and some of our garden beans do this. Watch to see if you
can catch them at it.

Plants have many, many ways of sending their precious seed children out
in the world to find a growing place.

There is no better way to spend our spare time than to watch the ripe
fruits of plants and find out how the seeds are dispersed. Nearly all
plants have some methods of sending their seeds abroad.

You will enjoy the plants more than ever when you begin to discover for
yourself some of the things they do.

[Illustration: Lupine.]







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