But when the chestnut seeds are quite ripe, then it opens as wide as it knows how; and very tempting it looks as it unfolds its contents. A chestnut tree in October looks like one great invitation.
The acorn (Fig. [78]), the seed of the oak tree, is pretty enough as a plaything, but less pleasing than the chestnut. Only the squirrel seems to find it fair eating.
Fig. 78
The trees which hide their seeds in nutshells contrive in different ways to send them abroad.
Many of these nuts are hoarded as winter food by the squirrels. Often in a moment of fright these little creatures drop them by the way. Again, they forget just where they deposited their hoard, or for some other reason they leave it untouched. Thus many nuts are scattered, and live to change into trees.
Others may fall into the water, and float to distant shores. The cocoanut, for example, has been carried in this way for hundreds of miles. Its outer covering protects the seed from being soaked or hurt by water; and when at last it is washed upon some distant shore, it sends up a tall cocoanut tree.
SOME STRANGE STORIES
When I began to tell you children about the different ways in which plants send their young out into the world, I had no idea that I should take so much time, and cover so many pages with the subject. And now I realize that I have not told you one half, or one quarter, of all there is to tell.