Hooked on you

Zoochory - this splendid word was new to me recently. It means the dispersal of seeds by animals as, for instance, when cherry stones pass through the digestive tract or nuts are buried by squirrels or in the case illustrated, hooked seeds attach themselves to the furry or hairy pelts of passing beasts. (Fred was not at all co-operative when I tried to get him to model the process but he can be seen in the background.)

These are the dried seed heads (burrs) of the Greater Burdock Arctium lappa, and if you brush against them they will stick to your clothes too. If you look closely you can see that the burr is a ball of seeds each one with a long spine that is hooked at the end. When the vector tries to pull, scratch or bite the burr off from where it has attached, it breaks into its component seeds which fall to the ground, possibly to germinate.

In 1941 a Swiss engineer, George de Mestral, went on a hunting trip in the Alps and on his return had to remove burrs from his clothes and his dog (whose name is not recorded.) He looked at them under a microscope and wondered about the possibility of replicating the tiny hooks to fasten textiles together. He took the idea to the weaving industry in Lyons and after a good deal of trial and error patented the invention which was first marketed as a 'zipperless zip' in the 1950s.

It took a while to catch on (ha!) but Velcro is now taken for granted as an everyday part of our lives, on clothes, sportsgear, combat uniforms, shoes, bags, and even in heart surgery. A small patch in an astronaut's helmet serves as a nose scratcher. It enables you to be a human fly.

George de Mestral was inducted into the inventors' hall of fame. He gave a piece of advice to Velcro executives: "If any of your employees ask for a two-week holiday to go hunting, say yes."
Not being an engineer, Emily Dickinson missed a trick when she had a similar encounter and wrote
A Burdock-clawed my Gown-
Not Burdock's-blame-
But mine-
Who went too near
The Burdock's Den-