The strange tree is capable of ... shooting seeds with the force of a 19th-century gun

The new species of Hamamelis Mollis from China has been discovered by scientists to be able to miraculously propagate.

Scientists have discovered the Hamamelis Mollis plant that has the ability to 'expel' its seeds at speeds of up to 12.3 meters per second. This is an unexpected finding because it is unlike other common plants that try to make the seeds fly as far as possible.

Picture 1 of The strange tree is capable of ... shooting seeds with the force of a 19th-century gun
Image of the species Hamamelis Mollis.

Plants often face the challenge of ensuring the next generation spreads to the world instead of letting seeds fall to their roots. Most plants make their seeds very light. They are carried with the wind or by animals as an indirect tool.

However, Hamamelis Mollis developed another method.It shoots its seeds out.

Dr. Simon Poppinga of the University of Freiburg was attracted by the distance achieved, he turned the process of launching Hamamelis Mollis seeds with a camera capable of capturing 30,000 frames per second.

Poppinga and his colleagues revealed it all started with the force acting on the seed like a 19th-century gun for its bullets. This creates an acceleration of about 2,000 times due to the gravity of the Earth.

However, instead of using explosives, Hamamelis Mollis tightened the particles like a person holding a soap bar until it shot out from between their fingers. Naturally, the seed shape has also evolved to minimize air resistance.

To prepare for this, the hard outer part of the fruit shrinks, while the inside of the meat undergoes a complex shape change to maximize pressure on the seed when it is dry. All of this slow dryness ended with a sudden strong 'shot' accompanied by a loud, cracked sound.

The strange thing is, the seed from a single tree does not have a regular rotation, half rotates clockwise and the other half is counterclockwise.