All winter the button balls dangle by their stringy stems on the twigs of the buttonwood trees. They bang against each other and against, the neighboring limbs when the wind whips them to and fro. The seeds are dry and ripe. They stand as thick on a central pit as grains of corn on the cob. At length a bump harder than usual loosens the attachment of a. few of these seeds. They bulge out and the next bump sets them free. In a short time not a seed is left on that particular button Each little seed is shaped like a. slender cone, attached by its pointed end. Near the t,ili is a \ vhorl of yellow hairs which spreads and forms a parachute that checks the seed's headlong Hight to the gromid and bears it some distance.
The catalpa tree stands all winter I111118 with its pencil-like pods. The two valves loosen as the winds buffet them, and the seeds slip out. one by one. And a strange looking seed it is ! From the cen tral embryo, two long wings, thin as tissue paper, taper into ragged fringes. The whole thing looks like a wraith of a seed, from which nothing might he expected.
The hop hornbeam or ironwood sends its seeds afloat in balloons. Take off one of these, little paper bags, open it., and you will find stt at its like a shiny, pointed seed. There is likely to lie a. long journey before this seed. for until it is safely under groud, or its bag punctured. the wind gives it no rest.
The hornbeam has a (plaint little scallop shell on which its seed is launched. The seed itself is firmly fastened in the of the boat and the wind carries it, careering in many directions before it finds its last resting place.
The slim blade in which the ;dianthus embryo sets sail is like a long, tilting raft. In winter the clusters of seeds seem fairly to burden the tree.'. ( hie by one the little rafts let go their hold and sail away.
Dill you ever lie under a silver maple tree in June and watch the falling seeds? They are twins as they grow on the tree. but they separate when ripe num Udell laKt"ti alone.
The heavy tip goes first, and the wing whirls madly round and round as the descent is made. The maples are many.
but they all bear wined, lop-sided seeds which whirl zind flutter away before the wind, or fall to the under the tree when there is no breeze to earn' them farther.
the conifers open the scales of their ripened miles and give to the Nvinds a delicate winged seed which looks like a miniature maple key. Some cones stand erect and. curling back their loosening scales. fairly unseat the seeds and shove them forth. The cones of idler trees hang down and the seeds fall out as the scales relax and Vreil(1 (LIM VII the basswood trees the seed clusters cling Bing after the leaves have fallen. They are
downy little halls, each with one , __ and or two gut seeds in it. ano 1111Pods of the Honey Locust are joined on a single stein which grows out of the middle of a leaf-like blade. When this stein lets go its hold 111Hal the tree the broad blade acts as a parachute. The wind takes a keen interest in it. Clravitation and buoyancy have a strife for mastery, and the basswood seeds generally fall to earth some distance from the tree that bore them.
The honey locust has long purplish pods, which rattle their hard little seeds as they fall in winter. The wind catches the curving blades and tilts them out of equilibrium. Always a resisting face is presented, always the breeze resents it, and the pod knows no rest until it is anchored by sonic weight which defeats the lifting power of the wind. So honey locust seeds germinate far from the parent tree, while the heavy straight pod of the Kentucky coffee tree lies undisturbed where it fell. The little Judas tree and the locust hold out their thin, leathery pods, and as the wind bears them away the valves part and the seeds are scattered.
Birds carry the seeds of many trees and drop them in places remote from the tree that bore them. Many a wilding apple or pear by the roadside grew from seed so distributed. Squirrels gather acorns and other nuts where they fall, and hide them by tens and dozens in little pockets under the snow or leaf mould along their winter runways. They store them for food, but many nuts are left untouched, and spring up into trees. On hillsides acorns may roll some distance. ( ;lusts of wind may snatch them from the twigs and fling them hi any direction. As a rule, however. the wind has little to do with the distribution of the heavy seeds of nnt-bearing trees.
When we look off over a forest set with broad-leaved trees and conifers, where gleam the white limbs of sycamores, the tattered trunks of birches, against a background of hemlocks and junipers; when we walk through such a wood, breaking off a twig of sweet birch here, and of sassafras there, and picking up chestnuts and hickory nuts under foot, we wonder how the trees all happened thus to mingle together. By what chance does a rock maple grow here and a W ill ow yonder, and a Judas tree between the two? We must watch for the seeds to ripen on these trees, and we must conic again to watch the launching of the seeds. Then some of our questions will be answered. Happily, most trees are loath to give up their fruits. Any day in winter as you walk through the woods you may watch these misers grudgingly dole out their treasures to the insistent wind.