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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 where they finding the right condition to grow.
If the seeds simply fell and grew beneath the parent plants they would be too overcrowded. There wouldn't be enough food in the soil for all the new plants.
Plants have developed a number of different ways to help the seeds be released and to help the seeds stay in the air for longer. This means they can be carried greater distances by the wind.
Seeds dispersed by the wind must be light and small.
Some plants such as orchids have seeds that are as small as specks of dust.
Others have feathery hairs and like parachutes they help the seed to catch the wind and float away. ........© [2007] Jupiterimages Corporation
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.
© [2007] Jupiterimages Corporation
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 & Sydenham, Seed dispersal:by wind. [Online] www.kidcyber.com.au (2008)
updated © [2008] kidcyber