LIFE HISTORIES OF FAMILIAR PLANTS 



How successful the method of fertihsation adopted 

 by the primrose has proved" to be, is shown by the 

 progress that the plant makes when it obtains 

 a foothold in suitable haunts. The flowers are 

 at first produced largely at the expense of the 

 material gathered during the previous autumn, but 

 afterwards the leaves begin to develop at a great 

 pace, flattening out and monopolising as much 

 ground as possible. Other flowers are produced 

 at intervals, but the work of the plant is now to 

 ripen its seed-pods that are hidden among the 

 leaves. Meanwhile the stalks which bear the pods 

 go on elongating, and by the time that the seeds 

 are ripened, the pods he near to the edges of the 

 leaves among which they are hidden. Eventually 

 the pods burst, and the seeds get lodged amongst 

 the crinkled leaves. At the slightest disturbance 

 of the leaves by wind or other agency, some of the 

 little seeds shake from amongst the leaves, and 

 these being down-turned at their ends give impulse 

 to the seeds, w^ith the result that on the tumbled 

 slopes w^here the primrose thrives best, they get 

 scattered to some distance from the parent plant ; 

 and so the primrose gains new ground for its 

 offspring and its species. 



The parent plant, after scattering its offspring, 

 then spreads out its leaves even more than ever, to 

 assimilate from the atmosphere those materials 

 that it requires in the building of the store of rich 

 starches for the production of its leaves and flowers 

 during the following spring. Eventuall}^, nipping 

 frosts occur, and the thick clump of leaves slowly 



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