When the fruit is ripe, the outer covering all of a sudden splits and curls up with considerable force, acting like a spring and shooting the seeds far over the thicket.
It spreads them far and wide, so they have a better chance to find a place to take root when the time comes.
The fruits are so eager to send the seeds on their journey, and so fearful that some harm will come to them, that they snap them away if any one touches the pods. If you jostle these eager plants you will hear the seeds flying in all directions. If you touch a seed-pod it goes off in your fingers. No wonder we call the plants “touch-me-nots”! Some call them “snapweed” or “snappers,” and the botany calls them “impatiens,” because they are so impatient!
They have yet another name, “lady’s eardrop,” and I do not know how many more. People must like the pretty things to give them so many names.
EARDROPS.
Eardrops of gold with red rubies beset,