-chore, -choric, -chorous, -chory

Many aquatic (water) plants use seed dispersal through water: Some hydrochoric plants; such as, water lilies make a fruit that floats in the water for a while and then drops down to the bottom to take root on the floor of the pond.

The seeds of palm trees can also be dispersed by the

hydrochoricprocess and if they grow near oceans, the seeds can be transported by ocean currents over long distances, allowing the seeds to be dispersed as far as other continents.

The dissemination of the fruits, seeds, and other primordia (the earliest stage of development) of plants downstream by means of the flowing water currents: Hydrochory is typical primarily for marsh and water plants, algae, and some kinds of fungi. The adaptations for this means of transmission are various bulges and growths on fruit membranes or seed coats (or special cells, as in the spores of fungi), which are filled with air and act as floating sacs.

Plants in which hydrochories occur include water plantains, arrowheads, flowering rushes, bur reeds, and pondweeds.

An organism that distributes itself.

Seed dispersal by ants is a dispersal mechanism by many shrubs of the southern hemisphere or understorey herbs of the northern hemisphere.

Seeds of myrmecochorous plants have a lipid-rich attachment called the elaiosome, which attracts ants. Ants carry such seeds into their colonies, feed the elaiosome to their larvae and discard the otherwise intact seed in an underground chamber.

Myrmecochory is a coevolved mutualistic relationship between plants and seed-disperser ants.

The dispersal of plants or seeds through the agency of ants with the employment of attractive seed appendages and chemicals by plants that induce the ants to transport the seeds without harming the embryo or endosperm of the plant (the tissue that surrounds the embryo inside a plant seed and provides nourishment for it).

Harvesting ants do not manage to carry all the seeds they collect back to their nests, and they do not eat all of the seeds stored in their granaries.

The result is that ants are a major and fortuitous dispersal agent for plants. They are especially effective in deserts and grasslands, but many species, not necessarily specialized harvesters, play some role even in tropical forests.

1. The dispersal of seeds by wind while the seeds are floating on water: Seeds dispersed by pleustochory are typically small and plumed, like those of willows and cattails and they are initially dispersed through the air (anemochory) and once they settle on the water they are blown even by light breezes to the water’s edge.

Pleustochory is believed to occur on many bodies of water; such as, pools, lakes, and even flowing water; when there are source plants nearby.

Pleustochory has been shown to play an important role in the speedy delivery of willow seeds to the sides of pools. Willow seeds have been measured sailing at speeds greater than five meters (16.40 feet) per minute on standing water.

2. Etymology: from Greek pleust, "to sail" or "to float" + chore, "to move, to spread".

The distribution of plumed (bearded) seeds or fruits by wind.

Distribution with more than one agent; such as, fruit from the same plant that is adapted to wind and animals.