Is it true that birds can drop seeds in your garden, causing plants to grow? It looks like I have a nice bleeding heart starting to grow this year and it wasn't there last year. And I didn't plant it. In fact we ripped out everything last year because we had just moved in and the garden was a big mess o' weeds.
Include some propagation of mistletoe in oak trees from the birds too. Seed distribution from birds may easily rival wind-borne distribution.
In any rain forest birds are the primary way of moving plants from place to place. All rain forest aroids produce seeds inside of berries that form on the inflorescence. The birds eat the berries, leave the seeds in their droppings on the branches of rain forest trees, and years later you'll find enormous plants growing 10 to 50 meters up in the canopy courtesy of the birds. If you've ever seen a documentary on the rain forest and wondered how all those Anthurium, Philodendron, Bromeliad and countless other species ended up in the canopy, thank the birds! Certainly wouldn't be uncommon for them to do the same in North America, only most of the plants grow in the soil here.
Thanks guys! Fascinating! In fact, the birds do always perch on the fence above where this plant is growing. So I wouldn't be surprised if it was the result of a little present left behind from one of their behinds.
