Next up they'll be walking around
and flying about in asteroids and the like before arriving on some unsuspecting planet full of people they can gobble up
Those Register readers who possess a garden yet are not fond of spending time on their knees clutching a trowel – take heart! Science has found a possible answer to your needs with the discovery of a type of plant which does not merely release its seeds, but actually bends down and buries them in the soil for you. The quite …
Lots of plants spread themselves by extending tendrils or roots which then develop into another plant. Some even detach the clone and let it float away down a river. If there isn't a plant which grows clonelets with barbs to hook onto a passing animal's hair, I'll be very surprised.
But these offspring are all clones, and if that was the only form of reproduction, the parasites would catch up and wipe out the species. Plants, like animals, need sexual reproduction to shuffle their genes and keep ahead of the parasites.
That's not the why of fruit!
The fruit is intended to tempt an animal to eat it, seeds and all. The seed survives its trip through the animal's digestive system, and is deposited elsewhere, along with a nice little lump of manure. Plants particularly appreciate omnivores ... the manure of an omnivore will be richer in nitrogen.
Tomato seeds survive not just the human digestive tract but the metropolitan sewerage system, and cause serious problems when they arrive and germinate in the filter beds.
I've always wondered what sort of animal it is that eats a mango complete with the massive pip. Water buffalo?
(from the actual paper <http://www.pensoft.net/inc/journals/download.php?fileId=2783&fileTable=J_GALLEYS>, my emphasis, purdy pikchas on page 51).
Still, interesting article.
Suggest to everyone, when walking down the street or out anywhere, to look at corners and tucked-away nooks and find the very little things that grow there, whole worlds of beauty in themselves (blake said it right), lost in oversight and the rush to the office, shops, school.
(and @Vladimir Plouzhnikov et al, this is called runnering; it doesn't involve the seeds but baby plants; cloning I suppose)
yet check out the seedpod of the 'Devil's Claw' plant to marvel at its 'intelligent design'.
Do an image seach. What elegance of form and function! This seed casing wraps itself completely around a passing animal's leg and holds on for dear life...operating on the same principle as the parking lots where exits are marked with 'severe tire damage' signs - the old reverse-barb trick!