Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 28, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 July 1895 — THE SEA PLANTS TREES. [ARTICLE]

THE SEA PLANTS TREES.

How Old Ocean Transports tha Germs of Future Forests. By far the greater part of the tree seeds which germinate fall directly to the ground, and spring up near the spot where they grew. Many seeds, however, are carried long distances by birds, squirrels and other animals, while some are borne on the wind, often for many miles, and are thus spread rapidly into regions where they never existed before. Such examples are familiar to all who have kept their eyes open and observed what was going on around them. But it is not generally known, perhaps, what an important partthe sea plays in carrying and planting seeds. It is in the tropics, where the sun pours down a flood of light and heat throughout the entire year, where vegetation grows unchecked at a time when the temperate regions are wrapped in winter, that any careful observer may watch at any time the process by which the ocean plants forests. Says a traveler: “ I have seen in small bays and sheltered coves among the West Indies thousands of bushels of tropical seeds of every size and form imaginable—from little things not half so large as a kernel of wheat up to a great cocoanut. “In many places they cover acres of surface in the water, or are piled up in regular ricks along the shore. “In most parts of the tropics there are one or more rainy seasons in the year, during which, often in a very short time, an immense amount of water falls, which carries vast quantities of seeds into the streams, and so into the sea. Sometimes the forests reach to the shore, and the fruits that grow on them drop directly into the water. “Some of these, such as mangrove and the Avicennia, germinate before leaving the tree, and are ready to begin life in the capacity of young plants as soon as they find a suitable place in which to grow in. During storms the tide sweeps over large areas of low land, bearing out an immense amount of loose material. Elsewhere the sea is constantly encroaching upon the land, carrying away quantities of trees and undergrowth. . “On the east coast of Honduras I have seen acres of forest toppling over into the sea, where the shore was being carried away by waves and currents.

“Prof. Agassiz estimated that from the mouth of the Amazon River to the northern part of South America a strip of land not less than 300 miles in width had been- washed away by the Gulf Stream since the present species of plants have existed. “Thrown thus upon the bosom of the sea, these little wanderers start out on their journey for unknown shores. It may be for days, months, or years, alone or in great dri ts, perhaps to be stranded on a cold, inhospitable coast to perish, or to land on some bright tropical beach to find a home as warm and sunny as the one they left, or, possibly, to return again after a lapse of time. “Little is known of the length of time the germs of seed will live in the ocean. I have seen cocoanuts floating about along tropical beaches with roots a foot and a half long, and leaves fully twice that length, ready to grow as soon as they were thrown upon the land, and apparently in the most perfect vigor. “Young mangroves will live on the sea for a whole year. Perhaps the storm that throws them on the shore sweeps them far in over lowland before it deposits them, other great breakers roll in and cover them with sand and mud, or they may land in the forest, and thus be screened from the rays of the sun. In a few years a colony is established, planted by the hand of the sea, and matured in the lap of the earth. “On the island of Trinidad there is a splendid ‘cocal,’extending for fourteen miles along the beach, which has grown from a shipwrecked cargc of cocorfhuts.”