Nature Can Protect Small Seedlings By G. G. Nearing Anyone who
has wandered through wild stands of Rhododendron maximum and
Kalmia latifolia must have noticed how thousands of seedlings
spring up, not among the fallen forest leaves, not yet on bare
ground, but chiefly along moss-covered mounds and hanks. A
moment's reflection will suggest that this is because the tiny
air-borne seeds happen to lodge in the moss, and are held there
until they germinate. Further thought may lead to the conviction
that there is more than just chance in the relation between
mosses and rhododendrons. In the protection of a greenhouse,
watched over by skillful propagators, doctored with the latest
and most potent chemicals, rhododendron seedlings are subject to
sudden onslaughts of damping - of diseases, fungi like Pythium
debaryanum which travel rapidly through the soil, destroying
thousand of little plants overnight. Then out in the open hills
and bogs where no one can interfere, why do not these same fungi
wipe out the wild plan