Canna Indica - Seeds

Seeds

The seeds are small, globular, black pellets, hard and heavy enough to sink in water. They resemble shotgun pellets giving rise to the plant's common name of Indian Shot. The seeds are hard enough to shoot through wood and still survive and later germinate. According to the BBC "The story goes that during the Indian Mutiny of the 19th century, soldiers used the seeds of a Canna Indica when they ran out of bullets."

The seeds are widely used for jewellery. The seeds are also used as the mobile elements of the kayamb, a musical instrument from RĂ©union, as well as the hosho, a gourd rattle from Zimbabwe, where the seeds are known as "hota" seeds.

Read more about this topic:  Canna Indica

Famous quotes containing the word seeds:

    A candle in the thighs
    Warms youth and seed and burns the seeds of age;
    Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)

    The current flows fast and furious. It issues in a spate of words from the loudspeakers and the politicians. Every day they tell us that we are a free people fighting to defend freedom. That is the current that has whirled the young airman up into the sky and keeps him circulating there among the clouds. Down here, with a roof to cover us and a gasmask handy, it is our business to puncture gasbags and discover the seeds of truth.
    Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)

    For Banquo’s issue have I filed my mind;
    For them the gracious Duncan have I murdered;
    Put rancors in the vessel of my peace
    Only for them; and mine eternal jewel
    Given to the common enemy of man,
    To make them kings, the seeds of Banquo kings!
    William Shakespeare (1564–1616)