Which Plants Are Like Spray Cans?

Some plants depend on animals such as birds or insects to carry their seeds away to start new plants; others just drop their seeds onto the ground about them, and new plants soon sprout, or are carried to other locations by the wind.

But a number of plants, like the squirting cucumber, have a strange way of spreading their seeds. A supply of gas and water builds up pressure inside the flower.

Then, at the right moment, when the seeds are ripe, the gas and water squirt out with the force of a spray can. The plant’s seeds are scattered in this way, sometimes as far as forty feet away!