Seed Dispersal

41. The meddlesome crow lends a hand. —"One of the most industrious and persistent seed-transporting agencies I know of is that ubiquitous, energetic, rollicking, meddlesome busybody, the crow. I have seen crows gather by hundreds and have a regular powwow, a mass convention, where they seemed to discuss measures and appoint officers. At length they get through, and as they start to fly away many, if not all, will drop something. I have found these to be acorns, walnuts, hickory nuts, buckeyes, sycamore balls, sticks, eggshells, pebbles, etc. As a crow leaves an oak he will pluck an acorn, which he may carry five miles and light on a beech tree where something else will attract his attention, when he will drop the acorn and maybe pluck a pod of beechnuts and fly away somewhere else." —Prof. W. B. Barrows.

The number of seeds distributed by crows is enormous, and consists of many species, including poison ivy and poison sumac, wild cherry, dogwood, red cedar, sour gum, and Virginia creeper. The hard, undigested seeds are mostly expelled from the mouth in pellets, shown in the illustration, and germinate more promptly than those untouched by birds.

Bears are very fond of berries, and will scatter the seeds of service berries, elder berries, chokecherries, raspberries, and blackberries.

42. Ants distribute some kinds of seeds. —Ants are numerous, strong, skillful, and in suitable weather are always very busy. Their habits have been investigated, and it has been found that in some respects they are genuine farmers on a small scale. They have their slaves (not hired help); they feed their plant lice, remove them from place to place, and otherwise care for them, because the lice constitute one of the chief sources of their supply of sweet. They build roads and houses, and enjoy society after their fashion. They have use for certain kinds of seeds, portions or all of which they eat at once or carry to their homes. A number of persons in different countries and at different times have seen ants carrying seeds. Some young student of botany may have noticed along one side of the glossy seeds of the bloodroot a delicate, fleshy ridge, and wondered what could be its use. The answer can now be given with a good degree of confidence. The ants either eat this fleshy ridge at once, or, as more frequently happens, carry such seeds to their homes. The smooth seeds they do not eat, but cast them out of their nests after using the part they like; after being rejected the seed may stand a chance to germinate. The seeds cannot be carried so well unless this ridge, caruncle, be present. Other seeds of this nature are those of wild ginger, celandine, cyclamen, violet, periwinkle, some euphorbias, bellwort, trillium, prickly poppy, dutchman's breeches, squirrel-corn, several species of Corydalis, Seneca snakeroot, and other species of milkworts.

In his work on Vegetable Mold and Earthworms, p. 113, Darwin states that earthworms are in the habit of lining their holes, using seeds among other things, and that these sometimes grow. In this way the worms aid in spreading plants.

43. Cattle carry away living plants and seeds. —In Arizona, where cacti abound, Professor Toumey finds that many of them are broken in pieces by cattle, which eat a portion, while other portions often adhere to the legs or noses and are carried from place to place. These fragments are usually capable of growing.

The unicorn plant, Martynia proboscidia, common in the southwestern portion of the United States, is sometimes seen in cultivation. When ripe, the fruit is hard, carrying two stout beaks with recurved tips. Experiments show it to be admirably adapted to catch on to the feet of sheep, goats, and cattle, or hold to the fleeces of the two former.

44. Water-fowl and muskrats carry seeds in mud. —Seeds and fruits of aquatic and bog plants that are floating, or in the mud of shallow water, are often carried by ducks, herons, swallows, muskrats, and other frequenters of such places, on their feet, beaks, or feathers, as they hastily leave one place for another. In this way seeds of water plantain, sedges, grasses, rushes, docks, arrowhead, pondweeds, duckweed, cat-tail flag, bur reed, bladderwort, water crowfoot, and many others are transported from one pond, lake, or stream, to another. In some cases enough of a living plant may be detached and carried away to keep on growing. Darwin found on the feet of some birds six and three-quarter ounces of mud, in which were five hundred and thirty-seven seeds that germinated. Mud may be carried on the feet of land animals as well as on aquatic animals, not only from ponds and bogs, but from the fields where seeds may have accumulated in the earth or washed down the slopes.

45. Why some seeds are sticky. —Some seeds and fruits are sticky; in some instances the mucilaginous substance is normally moist enough to adhere to anything that touches it, while in other cases it requires to be wetted before it will adhere. The seeds of flax, plantain, peppergrass, basil, sage, dracocephalum, groundsel, drop-seed grass, and many others less familiar, possess this peculiarity. The berries of some plants, when fully ripe, burst very easily when touched, and some of the seeds are then likely to adhere to animals and be carried away. Some berries of several plants belonging to the nightshade family have this peculiarity, as well as some of the cucurbits. When the outer covering of seeds of water lilies, arums, and others are broken, the gummy secretion is very likely to adhere to the feathers, or fur, or feet of animals. A number of fruits, and even the upper fruit-bearing branches, have sticky glands with which to catch on to any passing object. Among these are some kinds of sedges, chickweeds, and catchflies.

The sticky substance on seeds and fruits not unfrequently serves another good turn besides enabling them to adhere to animals. The slime holds them to the spot where they are to grow, or it enables some to float or to sink in water, according to the amount of the mucilage.

46. Three devices of Virginia knotweed. —A perennial plant, four to five feet high, grows on low land, usually in the shade. It is Polygonum Virginicum, and so far without a common name, unless Virginia knotweed be satisfactory. It is a near relative of knot grass and smartweed and Prince's feather. The small flowers are borne on a long, elastic, and rather stiff stem, and each flower stalk has a joint just at the base. As this fruit matures, the joint becomes very easy to separate. It dries with a tension, so that, if touched, the fruit goes with a snap and a bound for several feet. The shaking produced by the wind jostling several against each other is sufficient to send off a number of ripe fruits in every direction. Like many other plants we have seen, this has more than one way of scattering seeds, and often more than two ways. Observe the slender, stiff beak, terminating in two recurved points. Let a person or some animal pass into a patch of these plants, and at once numerous fruits catch on wherever there is a chance, and some are shot upon or into the fleeces of animals, there to find free transportation for uncertain distances. Should there be a freshet, some of these fruits will float; or, in case of shallow currents after a rain, some of them are washed away from the parent plant. Any inquisitive person cannot fail to be pleased if he experiment with the plant when the fruit is ripe.

47. Hooks rendered harmless till time of need. —There are a number of rather weedy-looking herbs, common to woods or low land, known as Avens, Geum. They are closely allied to cinquefoil, and all belong to the rose family. The slender stiles above the seed-like ovaries of some species of Avens are described as not jointed, but straight and feathery, well adapted, as we might suppose, to be scattered by the aid of wind; while others are spoken of as having, when young, stiles jointed and bent near the middle. In ripening, the lower part of the stile becomes much longer and stouter. When a whole bunch of pistils has drawn all the nourishment possible, or all that is needed, from the plant mother, the upper part of each stile drops off, leaving a sharp, stiff hook at the end. At this time each pistil loosens from the torus and can be easily removed, especially if some animal touch the hooks. To help in holding fast to animals, there are a number of slender hairs farther down the stile, which are liable to become more or less entangled in the animal's hair, fur, wool, or feathers. Even in the small number of plants here noticed, we have seen that scarcely any two of them agree in the details of their devices for securing transportation of seeds. I know of nothing else like the Geum we are now considering. When young and green, the tip of each hook is securely protected by a knob or bunch, with a little arm extending above, which effectually prevents the hook from catching on to anything; but, when the fruit is ripe, the projecting knob with its little attachment disappears. The figures make further description unnecessary. To keep the plow from cutting into the ground while going to or from the field, the farmer often places a wooden block, or "shoe," over the point and below the plow. Sometimes we have known persons to place knobs of brass or wood on the tips of the sharp horns of some of their most active or vicious cattle, to prevent them from hooking their associates or the persons having them in charge. Nature furnishes the points of the young fruits of some species of Avens with knobs, or shoes, for another purpose, to benefit the plants without reference to the likes or dislikes of animals.

48. Diversity of devices in the rose family for seed sowing. —All botanists now recognize plants as belonging to separate families, the plants of each family having many points of structure in common. Among these families of higher plants, over two hundred in number, is one known as the rose family. Notwithstanding their close relationship, the modes of seed dispersion are varied. The seeds of plums and cherries and hawthorns are surrounded by a hard pit, or stone, which protects the seeds, while animals eat the fleshy portion of the fruit. When ripe, raspberries leave the dry receptacle and look like miniature thimbles, while the blackberry is fleshy throughout. The dry, seed-like fruits of the strawberry are carried by birds that relish the red, fleshy, juicy apex of the flower stalk.

Each little fruit of some kinds of Avens has a hook at the apex, while in Agrimony many hooks grow on the outside of the calyx and aid in carrying the two or three seeds within. Plants of some other families illustrate the great diversity of modes of dispersion as well as the roses.

49. Grouse, fox, and dog carry burs. —To the feathers of a ruffed grouse killed in the molting stage, early in September, were attached fifty or more nutlets of Echinospermum Virginicum Lehm.

A student tells of a tame fox kept near his home, on the tail of which were large numbers of sand burs, and a smaller number on his legs and feet. Another student has seen dogs so annoyed by these burs on their feet that they gave up all attempts to walk.

Many wild animals unwillingly carry about such fruits, and after a while most of them remove what they can with claws, hoof, or teeth. Many of these plants have no familiar common names, but who has not heard of some of these? enchanter's nightshade, bedstraw, wild liquorice, hound's tongue, beggar-ticks, beggar's lice, stick-tights, pitchforks, tick-trefoil, bush clover, motherwort, sand bur, burdock, cocklebur, sanicle, Avens, Agrimony, carrot, horse nettle, buffalo bur, Russian thistle. Besides these, a very large number of small seeds and fruits are rubbed off and carried away by animals. Some of these stick by means of the pappus, as, for instance, the dandelion, thistle, prickly lettuce; others by means of hairs on the seed, such as those of the willow-herb and milkweeds and willows; or by hairs on the fruit, as virgin's bower, anemone, cotton grass, and cat-tail flag. These last named are apparently designed to be wafted by the wind, but they are ever ready to improve any other opportunity offered, whether it be by water or by clinging to passing animals.

50. Seeds enough and to spare. —In producing seeds nature is generous, often lavish. Most seeds are eaten by animals, or fall in places where they cannot germinate and produce plants, or fall in such numbers that most of them in growing are crowded and starved to death. A very small proportion fall on good ground, and succeed in becoming fruiting plants. A large plant of purslane produces one million two hundred and fifty thousand seeds; a patch of daisy fleabane, three thousand seeds to each square inch of space covered by a plant. The genuine student will not be satisfied till he has selected several different kinds of plants and counted, or estimated, the number of seeds produced by each, or the number of seeds furnished to the area covered by one or by several plants.