Very often a willow twig can be made to grow by merely sticking the cut end in damp earth, and many a large willow has thus been planted as a twig by the hand of a little child. CATTAILS. [Illustration: Cattails in bloom.] [Illustration] Cattail seeds fly, too! It is surprising to know that cattails blossom. But they do. In the early spring, cattails look green instead of brown, and the thickened green part near the top is made of very, very small flowers packed tightly together. The brown velvety part of the cattail succeeds the green flowers, and is but a collection of tiny seed pods that fluff out with tiny plumes in the autumn. There are two kinds of flowers in cattails, as there are in willows, only in the cattails the two kinds are on the same plant. If you look at a cattail in its green stage, you will easily find the staminate flowers growing at the very top of the stalk,—at _A_ in the picture. Out of these staminate flowers you can shake clouds of yellow pollen. Below the staminate flowers at _B_ are the pistillate flowers, very small and packed very closely together. Each one has a seed pod at its base, and each seed pod when ripe has a tiny plume. [Illustration] [Illustration: Cattails with ripe seeds.] Of course the seed pods fly away on the wings of the wind. Being so small and light, they are sometimes carried a long distance. A good many, no doubt, are so unfortunate as to fall on dry ground, and that is the end of them. But others fall in swamps and ditches, where they grow vigorously and often fill up the swamp or the ditch so that it becomes a bed of cattails. The downy cattail seeds are gathered in some places and made into mattresses for people to sleep on. GERANIUMS. [Illustration] The bright flowers raised in hothouses or in windows, and that we call geraniums, do not often bear seed in the house. In that part of the world where they grow wild, and out of doors in the summer time, they do. And their seeds are very curious indeed; for they can not only fly about but can bury themselves in the ground. [Illustration] The geranium flower bears five curious seed pods that grow close together around a common center. Each seed pod has one seed, and when the seed is ripe the pod splits away from the center-piece. The pod runs up to a point, as you can see in the picture. [Illustration] [Illustration] There is a long feather-like plume packed in the long stem-like part of the pod, and this comes out when the pod splits away. Then the whole thing is floated off by the wind. This curious plume curls up like a corkscrew when dry, and so pushes the seed down into the grass or the earth where it has fallen. When the plume is made damp by rain or dew it straightens out. [Illustration] At the bottom of the seed case are a few hairs or bristles that point backward and hold the seed so that it cannot be pulled out of the ground when the plume curls and straightens, but must always be pushed farther in.