86 
forces its way into the earth below, and puts out a root, 
and root fingers. And now its upper part begins to 
lengthen out and to straighten itself. In doing this, 
it pulls the two seed 
leaves right out of the 
seed coat. If it fails 
at once to get rid or 
the ‘seed coat; 1 ines 
this up into the air, on 
top of its leaves. 
FIG. 93 
Often the young 
maple tree comes into the world in this way, carrying 
its seed coat on top of its seed leaves. The maple 
is another plant that packs its baby food 
within the seed leaves instead of round 
about them. Perhaps your teacher has 
saved for you some maple keys (Fig. 93), 
as the fruit of the maple tree is called. If 
you split open a maple key, you will find 
hidden within one of its halves (Fig. 94) the 
beautiful baby tree. This is folded away so 
FIG. 94 
neatly that one is tempted to split open one key after 
another, for the pleasure of unpacking other dell- 
cate baby maples (Fig. 95). 
But now let us find out what has happened to 
the peas which I planted. 
Peas seem to us so much like beans, that per- 
FIG. 95 
haps you think the young pea baby comes into 
the world in the same way as the bean plant; but 
surely we have nothing here that looks at all like the 
bean plant. 
