Falling
A free-falling object without any adaptation to flight can only be sustained by the wind if it is very light and falls more slowly than the wind blows it upwards.
Many mould and bacterial spores, even live bacteria, are small enough to be carried long distances and to great heights on the wind.
Some plants also use the wind for seed dispersal in this way. Orchid seeds are very small and dust-like.
Read more about this topic: Unpowered Flight
Famous quotes containing the word falling:
“But the word Miracle, as pronounced by Christian churches, gives a false impression; it is Monster. It is not one with the blowing clover and falling rain.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“In my grandmother’s house there was always chicken soup
And talk of the old country—mud and boards,
Poverty,
The snow falling down and necks of lovers.”
—Louis Simpson (b. 1923)
“I dreamed that I stood in a valley, and amid sighs,
For happy lovers passed two by two where I stood;
And I dreamed my lost love came stealthily out of the wood
With her cloud-pale eyelids falling on dream-dimmed eyes....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)