230 HOW PLANTS GKOW. 



of which the plant is to be built up. This is a process the very 

 reverse of the first, because it is one rendering soluble matters 

 insoluble — /*.«?., making cellulose, or the plant-fabric. How this is 

 done we do not fully know; probably, by the conversion of 

 dextrine at once into cellulose, and by the return of the soluble 

 albuminoids to the insoluble state in which we found them in the 

 mature seed. 



These three processes safely accomplished — solution, convey- 

 ance, and assimilation — the young plantlet, having, with marvel- 

 lous dexterity, made use of its own laboratory, begins an inde- 

 pendent existence. Its radicle elongates downwards at the root, 

 and by " nutation," as it is called, penetrates the soil, fixes itself 

 there, to absorb the nourishment it finds in *' Mother Earth " for 

 one year, or a thousand, as the case may be, as the tender garden- 

 annual, or the giant of the Australian forest. 



The plumule is quietly and unerringly drawn up under the 

 gentle influence of the light which it needs must follow, to send 

 out, first of all, branches ; then leaves^ which by their thousand 

 " mouths " shall take in the food they find waiting for them in the 

 air supplied by the animal creation ; finally, as the highest result 

 of its growth, the flower^ in which shall reside the germ potential 

 of the successors of the race. The plantlet has now solved the 

 problem with which it started its existence — " How am I to 

 grow ? " and solved it in a wonderful manner, guided by the same 

 Divine power that creates and governs both star and flower. 



In following the plantlet through its devious course, we have 

 been able to see how from a speck of protoplasm, microscopically 

 minute, there can be evolved the seaweeds that fringe our shores, 

 the ferns that grace our woodlands, the flowers that gladden us all 

 our days, and the majestic forest-trees under whose shadows we 

 can rest, and think of all the beauty and grandeur that can come 

 from so simple an origin. 



London ; July, 1885. 



