The Private Life of Plants

00:00:42 Midwinter, and the countryside is so still, it seems almost lifeless.

00:02:48 Above, hazel leaves, moving to the same rhythm, pulse as they expand to their full size.

00:05:32 but the desert dunes are always moving

00:07:27 the resultant mass of puffballs would be 800 times the volume of the earth.

00:09:59 are transformed into wonderfully intricate globes

00:12:13 A few will reach a distant shore and germinate.

00:14:36 A slightly heavier seed or a shorter and narrower wing

00:16:46 Raindrops bounce off it, taking the seeds with them.

00:19:12 Many, doubtless, are lost at sea, but some eventually reach another, maybe distant, coast.

00:20:57 If the burdock is lucky, that'll happen some distance from where the adult plant grew.

00:23:02 Many plants in the dry heathlands of southern Africa engage them as carriers

00:24:47 and quickly spot them, for black is a very conspicuous colour.

00:26:59 The flesh of the fruit will be digested

00:28:17 scattered among the leaves.

00:29:57 ..and that's very different.

00:32:44 The grasslands are created by monsoon floods

00:34:26 That may seem surprising, for they're only too obviously great destroyers of acacias.

00:36:18 They may well walk several miles before, having digested their huge meals

00:38:45 The agouti has two pairs of front teeth that are as sharp as chisels

00:40:38 But unlike the agouti, it regularly carries the seeds away from the forest

00:42:14 It has no suckers like Virginia creeper to help it climb up here, no clinging roots like ivy.

00:44:21 There are no established competitors.

00:46:21 In one of those pits they found some seeds like these.

02:00:00 variable like this?