This little book is prepared with the thought of helping young botanists and teachers. Unless the reader has followed in detail, by actual experience, some of the modes of plant dispersion, he can have little idea of the fascination it affords, or the rich rewards in store for patient investigation. A brief list of contributions to the subject is given; but, with very few exceptions, the statements here made, unless otherwise mentioned in the text, are the results of observations by the author.

   1. Most of the larger animals move about freely    2. Some animals catch rides in one way or another...

   3. Fairy rings    4. How nature plants lilies 5. Roots hold plants erect like ropes to a mast 6. How oaks creep about and multiply...

   7. Two grasses in fierce contention    8. Runners establish new colonies 9. Branches lean over and root in the soil 10. Living branches snap off and are carried by water or wind...

11. Some green buds and leaves float on water 12. Fleshy buds drop off and sprout in the mud 13. Seeds and fruits as boats and rafts 14. Bits of cork around the seeds prevent them from sinking 15. An air-tight sack buoys up seeds 16. Fruit of basswood as a sailboat, and a few others as adapted to the water...

17. How pigweeds get about 18. Tumbleweeds 19. Thin, dry pods, twisted and bent, drift on the snow 20. Seeds found in melting snowdrifts 21. Nuts of the basswood carried on the snow 22. Buttonwood balls 23. Seeds that tempt the wind by spreading their sails 24. Why are some seeds so small? 25. Seeds with parachutes 26. A study of the dandelion 27. How the lily sows its seeds 28. Large pods with small seeds to escape from small holes 29. Seeds kept dry by an umbrella growing over them 30. Shot of

35. Dry pods twist as they split open and throw the seeds 36. A seed case that tears itself from its moorings...

37. Squirrels leave nuts in queer places and plant some of them 38. Birds scatter nuts 39. Do birds digest all they eat? 40. Color, odor, and pleasant taste of fruits are advertisements 41. The meddlesome crow lends a hand 42. Ants distribute some kinds of seeds 43. Cattle carry away living plants and seeds 44. Water-fowl and muskrats carry seeds in mud 45. Why some seeds are sticky 46. Three devices of Virginia knotweed 47. Hooks rendered harmless till time of need 48. Diversity of devices in t

51. Burs stick to clothing 52. Man takes plants westward, though a few migrate eastward...

53. Plants are not charitable beings 54. Plants migrate to improve their condition 55. Fruit grown in a new country is often fair 56. Much remains to be discovered B IBLIOGRAPHY...

1. Most of the larger animals move about freely.— When danger threatens, the rabbit bounds away in long jumps, seeking protection in a hollow tree, a log, or a hole in the ground. When food becomes scarce, squirrels quickly shift to new regions. Coons, bears, skunks, and porcupines move from one neighborhood to another. When the thickets disappear and hunters abound, wild turkeys and partridges retreat on foot or by wing. When the leaves fall and the cold winds blow, wild geese leave the lakes i

3. Fairy rings.— Several low forms of plant life, such as Marasmius oreades , Spathularia flavida , and some of the puffballs, start in isolated spots in the grass of a lawn or pasture, and spread each year from a few inches to a foot or more in every direction, usually in the form of a circle; at the end of fifteen years some of these circles acquire a diameter of fifteen to twenty feet or more. These are known as fairy rings. Before science dispelled the illusion they were believed to have bee

7. Two grasses in fierce contention.— In growing a lawn at the Michigan Agricultural College, a little Bermuda grass was scattered with June grass, and the struggle has been most interesting. In the spring and for six weeks in autumn, when moisture usually abounds and the weather is cool, June grass thrives and little else is seen. In the dry, hot weeks of July and August, June grass rests and the Bermuda, which continues to spread, assumes control of the lawn, with but little of the June grass

11. Some green buds and leaves float on water.— Loosely floating on slow streams of the northern states, in water not the purest, may often be found the common bladderwort, Utricularia vulgaris , producing in summer a few yellow flowers on each stem, rising from six to twelve inches above the water. The lax, leafy branches in the water are from six inches to a foot long. The leaves, or thread-like branches, are about half an inch long, more or less, and several times divided. Scattered about are

17. How pigweeds get about.— In winter we often see dead tops of lamb's-quarters and amaranths—the smooth and the prickly pigweeds—still standing where they grew in the summer. These are favorite feeding grounds for several kinds of small birds, especially when snow covers the ground. Many of the seeds, while still enclosed in the thin, dry calyx, and these clustered on short branches, drop to the snow and are carried off by the wind. Notwithstanding the provision made for spreading the seeds by

By numerous devices a large number of the lower plants send off their ripe spores with considerable force. Some call them sling fruits. One in particular, Pilobolus cristallinus , found about damp stables, I have observed to shoot black masses of spores to a spot on a wall six feet above the ground, with enough force to have carried them not less than twelve feet. When ripe and dry, the spores of most ferns are shot from the parent plant by a motion forcible enough not only to burst the sporangi

With the frosts of autumn ripe acorns, beechnuts, bitternuts, butternuts, chestnuts, hickory nuts, hazelnuts, and walnuts are severed from the parent bush or tree and fall to the ground among the leaves. 37. Squirrels leave nuts in queer places and plant some of them.— Even before the arrival of frosts many of these are dropped by the aid of squirrels, gray and red, which cut the stems with their teeth. The leaves, with the help of the shifting winds, gently cover the fruit, or some portions of

In describing the various means by which plants are dispersed, people are very likely not to mention the aid supplied by man, or to speak of his efforts as artificial or unnatural, forgetting for the time that man so far appears to be the crown of earthly existence, and that his works are a necessary part of a complete world. 51. Burs stick to clothing.— Late in summer or in autumn, who is there who has not returned from a walk along the river or from a tramp through thickets or the open woods,

53. Plants are not charitable beings.— Man uses to his advantage a large number of plants, but there appears to be no evidence that the schemes for their dispersion were designed for anything except to benefit the plants themselves. The elegant foliage and beautiful flowers, the great diversity of attractive seeds and fruits, all point to plants as strictly selfish beings, if I may so use the term; and not to plants as works of charity, to be devoured by animals without any compensation. By fert

Means of Plant Dispersion. By E. J. H ILL . Am. Nat. Vol. xvii, pp. 811, 1028. 1883. Why Certain Kinds of Timber Prevail in Certain Localities. By J OHN T. C AMPBELL . Am. Nat. Vol. xix, p. 337. 1885. Report of the U. S. Commissioner of Agriculture for 1888. Article on the "Food of Crows." By W. B. B ARROWS . p. 498. Report of the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture for 1890. Article on "Seed Planting by Birds." By W. B. B ARROWS . p. 280. Report of the U. S. Secretary of Agriculture for 1893. Articl