Covered with many protecting coats, it becomes a perfect seed.

The original casket swells, hardens, is transformed into a rounded capsule or seed-vessel, opening by valves or a deftly constructed hinge.

One day this seed-vessel, crowded with seeds, breaks open and completes the cycle of reproduction by dispersing them over the ground, where they sow themselves, and grow and become primrose plants in their turn, starring the grass with their lovely blossoms.[17] Sometimes the male and female elements grow upon different plants, as in the catkins children are so fond of gathering in the spring.
"More than two thousand years ago Herodotus observed a remarkable custom in Egypt.

At a certain season of the year the Egyptians went into the desert, cut off branches from the wild palms, and bringing them back to their gardens, waved them over the flowers of the date-palm.

Why they performed this ceremony they did not know; but they knew that if they neglected it the date-crop would be poor or wholly lost.