seed dispersal

Seed dispersal by wind

Flowering plants make seeds so that new plants can grow. The seeds are the way the plants can spread out and grow in new places, sometimes a long way away from the parent plant.

It is important that the seeds are dispersed over a wide area to a place that has the right conditions for a new plant to grow.

If the seeds simply fell and grew beneath the parent plants they would be overcrowded. There wouldn't be enough food in the soil for all the new plants.

Plants have developed a number of different ways to release their seeds and have them carried away to a new place where they can grow. Seeds are carried by wind and water and by animals, including birds and insects. Some seeds explode from the parent plant, other plants need the heat of fire for their seeds to be released.

Seeds dispersed by the wind must be light and small. This makes it possible for the wind to carry them over great distances.

Some plants such as orchids have seeds that are as small as specks of dust.

Others have feathery hairs that work like parachutes.
This helps the seeds catch the wind and float away.
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Wing-like seeds spin as they fall from the parent plant. This spinning slows its fall so that the wind might carry it some distance away.

The ripe fruit of poppies becomes a dry, hollow container of seeds. When the wind shakes it, the seeds fall from the container and are scattered all around.

If you use any part of this, write the source in your bibliography like this:
Thomas, Ron. & Sydenham, Shirley. Seed dispersal by wind. [Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2008)

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