THE SEEDLING’S PATRIMONY 61 
We can verify this much for ourselves without 
any difficulty, but until the student has learnt enough 
to be able to prove it to his own 
satisfaction he must take my 
word for it that the mass of cells 
contains a reserve of food upon - 
which the embryo draws as it Fic. 18.—Seed of the 
grows into a seedling. And that Meee ee 
is how plants provide for the ooo at. 4 rane 
adequate nutrition of their chil- ~° — FS, foodsupply. ~ ’ 
dren until they are able to look 
after themselves; they do not all do it in exactly 
the same manner, but, in one way or another, the 
parent provides its offspring with enough to last 
until it is strong enough and big enough to manu- 
facture its own supplies. In the seed of both the 
Columbine and the Monkshood, as well as of a great 
many of our common plants, the embryo remains 
tiny and is surrounded by the food reserve; but 
in others, as, for example, the Sweet Pea and the 
Charlock. it is very much larger, so large that it fills 
up the whole of the interior of the seed, and the food 
is stored, not in a mass of cells outside it, but inside 
its own body. In this sort of seed the nutriment is 
absorbed into the body of the embryo during the 
process of ripening, and is held in reserve in order to 
be digested and assimilated when germination com- 
mences, whereas in the other sort it is not absorbed 
until germination takes place. In either event, 
however, the food has been manufactured by the 
parent and handed over to the seed for the use of the 
youngster ; it is, so to speak, its patrimony. 
That is all I need say about the provision that 
plants make for their children during their helpless: 

