Democratic Sentinel, Volume 11, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 August 1887 — CURIOSITIES OF NATURE. [ARTICLE]

CURIOSITIES OF NATURE.

The Jurr.ping fa!!, tire Acrobatic Bean, and Seed-, ilj-.f Explode. ‘’Here is a curiosity,“ said a botanist. It was a little ball of wood or fiber that /when held in the palm seemed endowed with liie, rolling o er ai.d over an.l flying into the air. “I’ve had people come to me with these,” continued the speaker, “and say they were bewitched. One man believed lie had discovered spontaneous generation: another wrote an exhaustive paper which he tried to read at all t.ne learned so< ieties, show n" that here was the beginning of both animal and plant life. In fact, the little gall, for that is what it is, has attracted a good deal of attention.” t “Mo it is only a plant,” said a reporter. “>-ot exactly a plant; but tho unnatural growth of vegetable matter on trees, bushes, or shrubs, caused by the secretion in the bark of an insect egg that hutches and cam es the growth. In tills case, you see, the gall is little larger than a mustard seed. “The gall is produced in this way: The eggs of a very small dark-colored insect, km wn as cynips, are deposited in the leaf, and, from some secretion introduced into the wound, the vegetable matter entombs the insect in a ball of fiber separate from the leaf, from which it finally drops. The larva’s movements in restraint create the curious activity. “There are many kinds of galls, and though they are injurious to trees they are invaluable to man, and aie staple commodities. The ordinary oak galls of commerce are made by a cynips. When they are green, blue, or black, the insect is in them, but when white it has escaped. England is the center of the trade, and receives galls from Germany, Turkey, Egypt, China, and Bombay. The galls are used for a variety of purposes. One sort of blasting powder is made of powdered galls and chlorate, but the most valuable product is ink. This is made from them almost entirely. “Seeds often jump about in the same mysterious way. In Mexico strangers see a curious seed known as devil’s bean, or jumping seed. In appearance it is a small triangular body. The first time I saw these seeds I was sure that they were arranged with mechanical springs, as they not only rolled about, but jumped several inches in the air. But open one of the seeds and the my stery is explained. The shell is hollowed out, cont.i ning nothing but a white larva, that has eaten out nearly all the interior and lined it with silk. Its motions occasion the strange movements. “Some seeds move by an entirely different process—that of exploding. A friend of mine got some seeds in India once, and placed them on his cabin table. All at once came an explosion like that of a revolver, and he received a blow on the forehead that drew blood, while a looking glass opposite was shattered. The seeds had become heated, and all at once the covering exploded, scattering the seeds in all directions. That is their manner of dispersal, and a large number of plants have a similar method of scattering their seed.” —New York Sun.