n, and will not stain this veracious page with any
second-hand quotations from the strange stories of modern scientific
Munchausens.

Still higher in the evolutionary scale than the elastic fruits are
those airy species which have taken to themselves wings like the eagle,
and soar forth upon the free breeze in search of what the Americans
describe as 'fresh locations.' Of this class the simplest type may be
seen in those forest-trees, like the maple and the sycamore, whose
fruits are flattened out into long expansions or parachutes,
technically known as 'keys,' by whose aid they flutter down obliquely
to the ground at a considerable distance. The keys of the sycamore, to
take a single instance, when detached from the tree in autumn, fall
spirally through the air owing to the twist of the winged arm, and are
carried so far that, as every gardener knows, young sycamore trees rank
among the commonest weeds among our plots and flower-beds. A curious
variant upon this type is presented by the lime, or linden, whose
fruits are in themselves small wingless nuts; but they are born in
clusters upon a common stalk, which is winged on either side by a large
membranous bract. When the nuts are ripe, the whole cluster detaches
itself in a body from the branch, and flutters away before the breeze
by means of the common parachute, to some spot a hundred yards or more,
where the wind chances to land it.

The topmost place of all in the hierarchy of seed life, it seems to me,
is taken by the feathery fruits and seeds which float freely hither and
thither wherever the wind may bear them. An immense number of the very
highest plants--the aristocrats of the vegetable kingdom, such as the
lordly composites, those ultimate products of plant evolution--possess
such floating feathery seeds; though here, again, the varieties of
detail are too infinite for rapid or popular classification. Indeed,
among the composites alone--the thistle and dandelion tribe with downy
fruits--I can reckon up more than a hundred and fifty distinct
variations of plan among the winged seeds known to me in various parts
of Europe. But if I am strong, I am merciful: I will let the public off
with a hundred and forty-eight of them. My two exceptions shall be
John-go-to-bed-at-noon and the hairy hawkweed, both of them common
English meadow-plants. The first, and more quaintly named, of the two
has little ribbed fruits that end in a long and narrow beak, supporting
a ra