Being a male of the species, I have to admit I’ve spent a lot of time on a succession plan for my genes.

(I.e., chasing girls.)

But human beings have nothing on plants. Ever since they took root on land hundreds of millions of years ago, plants have evolved incredibly creative ways of, well, spreading their seed.

Using the elements, for instance. The common dandelion depends on helpful breezes to disperse its cloud of tiny white parachutes. Water is another popular strategy. The journey of the fruit of the humble water lily may only amount to a couple of feet from the surface of a pond to the muck below, but seeds of the palm tree often embark on oceanic voyages, floating thousands of miles from the tree that dropped them.

Gravity can be a plant’s friend, too, as in the case of the coconut, which drops to the ground and rolls, using its hard shell to advantage in staking out a new territory.

My favorite seed dispersal strategy, and perhaps the rarest, is the so-called “ballistic” method, the physical – and sometimes explosive – discharge of seeds. These are the Howitzers of the plant world, the Olympic lacrosse players, the rocket launchers. The Spotted Touch-Me-Not, a member of the Impatiens genus, releases its DNA like a firecracker at the slightest pressure. And don’t get me started on Ecballium elaterium, the so-called “squirting cucumber…”

Evolution has nudged some plants away from the elements, which can be somewhat fickle, and towards animals for help in casting a broader web. We all know about – and willingly participate in – the delicious “edible fruit” strategy, where a bush or tree lures us in with its sweet and juicy flesh. Of course, these tasty flesh-pots have a devious ulterior motive: to slip the fruit-eater an indigestible pit or stone. Very clever! The plant wins on two fronts: wide dispersal of its seed, as the mammal wanders off for a postprandial nap; and a dollop of fertilizer to help establish the seed, after it passes through the mammal’s digestive tract and plops down, with any luck, on virgin soil.

Fruit-bearing plants that depend on animals for seed dispersal are called “endozoochorous.” I don’t mind endozoochorous plants. I happen to like eating fruit, and I don’t mind wielding a paring knife to divest an apple or a pear of its sneaky little sleeper cell.

There’s another category of mammal-users, though, the “epizoochorous” plants. “Epizoo – ,” meaning “outside the animal,” as opposed to “endozoo – ,” meaning “inside the animal.”

These little buggers spread their seeds by attaching them to the outside of an animal. A few species use an exotic attachment method, like, say, adhesive mucus (yum!). But most of them use tried and true structures like spines, hooks, or barbs.

If you’ve ever walked through a field in Perry County in November, only to emerge on the other side with a sockful of burrs, you’ve met some of our local epizoochorous plants. The Bidens tripartita, for instance – no relation to our current vice president – whose seeds look like tiny armless men. You may know them as “beggarticks,” “stickseeds,” or “tickseeds.”

Or maybe you’ve come home with shoeful of horrible spiked balls which nothing short of a needle-nose pliers will dislodge. In that case, you’ve probably had a run-in with a nasty thistle called burdock.

The Swiss inventor George de Mestrel went hunting in the Alps in 1941 and came home covered with burdock seeds. He wondered how a flimsy-looking seed could form such a strong bond with his trousers. When he put the seeds under a microscope, he saw that its spines terminated in tiny but robust hooks, perfect for snagging the equally tiny loops on the surface of woven fabric. It occurred to him that this was a kind of natural zipper.

Mestral’s “aha!” moment led to a decade of hard work and financial risk. He grasped the possibility of a man-made hook-and-loop fastener right away, but there were technical problems to overcome. Even when Velcro — the portmanteau word he gave his new invention, a combination of the French “velours/crochet” or “velvet/knit — ” was an industrial reality, the fashion world was slow to embrace it. It wasn’t until NASA used Velcro prominently in the space program that it really began to catch on.

My hat’s off to Monsieur Mestral for finding in one of life’s little irritants one of life’s great conveniences. There’s a lesson here. Vexation can be productive, especially when it contains the seed of a big idea.

 

This column was published in the Perry Co Times on 10 November 2011

For more information, please contact Mr. Olshan at writing@matthewolshan.com