Question

Seed and fruit dispersal is achieved with the aid of wind , water, animals, mechanical means and humans. If you were designing a new plant, can you think of any new way in which it might be dispersed?

Answer 1

Seed and fruit dispersal are mainly divide by two methods.----(a) Autochory: plant itself take part in dispersal process and (b) allochory: dispersal process act by any external mean, like- wind,water,animal,human and mechanical mean.

If one is given to design a plant that follow a dispersal other than allochory then it should follow autochory. So, Autochory is a process of seed dispersal by mean of plant itself. These are of few types---

(1) Barochory: Here the plant disperse its fruit or seed by the hepl of gravity. The riped and heavy fruits fall on the ground. Ex- apple, coconut, mango, etc.

(2) Ballochory: The seeds are dispersed by explosion of the fruit generated by the tugor pressure in the fruit itself in the plant. Ex- Geranium, impatiens, witch hazel, etc.

(3) Blastochory: Here the base of the stem of the plant stasts crawling in the ground and disperse seeds or fruits away from the main stem of the plant.

(4) Herpochory: The seed disperse by the mean of trichomes during crawling.