Thursday 21 June 2012

moving along with all sorts of seeds

Seeds come in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  And they can travel to their new growing place in all sorts of ways.

As we have already found out, there are seeds that have wings attached to help them twirl around and around as they fly away to their new growing place.

There are BIG hard heavy seeds that drop off coconut palm trees…..

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and can float away on the sea until they reach another spot in which to send down roots, and there are teeny tiny fluffy seeds that drift away on the merest breeze to find their new home.

fly away

There are plants that have seeds (that are itchy…..

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but don’t tell anyone I told you so) which are carried to their new growing place by birds who feast on the ripe fruits they are hidden inside.

And there are seedpods from a columbine flower…..

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that b-u-r-s-t open on warm sunny days and fire out hundreds of tiny black seeds…..

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which can then grow in a suitable spot a short distance away from the parent plant.

There are seeds that have cunning hooks on them…..

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which attach themselves to the fur of animals, your socks - or even your hair…..

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(thank you Mélina for carrying it back to the classroom for us!) and so find their way to a far away growing place.

Why not see how many different kinds of seeds you can spot when you are next out and about?  Look at them carefully and ask yourself how they get to their new places to grow.  Do they just fall from the plant to the ground below?  Or are they cleverer than that?  I wonder; can you find some with hooks like the ones we found?  Or just maybe, if you listen carefully enough, you might hear some popping in the garden on a warm sunny afternoon.

PS Remember never to pick up seeds unless an adult you know has told you it is safe to do so.  Some seeds can give you a nasty tummy ache.

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