Thanks very much, Lou and Dan. Fall it is. I have (since posting my
question) read that one botanist took a Witch Hazel branch in his home was
was rewarded (?) by the process over his bed in the night. This suggests
experimentation of a sort, in order to find the temperature or humidity
that does it.
And umashankar, there certainly are lots of fruit and seeds that "move" in
some way to effect dispersal. In New England our most famous is Jewelweed,
or Touch-me-not, so named because most of the summer the pods will
(silently) burst if touched. With impatiens capensis it is the moisture
level that gradually sets the pod in great tension so the strips will
recoil like a mouse-trap with the slightest disturbance.
Thanks all.
Marty
At 07:20 PM 9/7/2005, you wrote:
> >The flowers of witch-hazel open in September and October, and the fruit
> >ripens the next fall. Shortly after ripening, the capsules burst open,
> >discharging their seed
>
>Somewhere back around 1981 I was hiking with my eldest son up Mount
>Sutro in San Francisco. When we got to the summit, there was a steady
>rattle of seed pods on the bushes along the trail exploding in the
>hot sun.
>
>-Dan Dugan
>
>
>
>"Microphones are not ears,
>Loudspeakers are not birds,
>A listening room is not nature."
>Klas Strandberg
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
-- best regards, Marty Michener
MIST Software Assoc. Inc., P. O. Box 269, Hollis, NH 03049
http://www.enjoybirds.com/
Don't blame me, I vote in New Hampshire!
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