224 nature; study. 



would be astonished at the numbers he would see. Under 

 a maple tree, for instance, thousands of seeds are to be 

 seen in the various stages of germination. Quantities of 

 key-shaped seeds drop from the sugar maple in the fall, 

 lie dormant all winter, and germinate in the spring. 



The seed is well protected by an outer coat, the testa. 

 A tiny plant, the embryo, is curled up inside ; in the sugar 

 maple completely filling the space. The embryo consists 

 of two long seed-leaves, the cotyledons, and the little stem, 

 or caudicle. When the seed begins to germinate, the stem 

 lengthens, and the cotyledons are carried up out of the 

 ground, bearing aloft the bursted seed coat. At the same 

 time the root begins to grow, and soon securely fixes the 

 young plant. 



The cotyledons never perform the work of real leaves, 

 but are merely the stores of nourishment for the j^oung 

 plant. In between the cotyledons is a little bud, a plu- 

 mule, from which the second pair of leaves grow. After 

 these are formed, the cotyledons, having finally exhausted 

 their store of food, wither and die. 



The waste, or rather the profligacy of nature, is exem- 

 plified well in the case of the seedlings. Consider the 

 numbers of seeds that are lost, that a few may live ! For 

 it is with plants as with the human family, the mortality is 

 greatest during infancy. It has been computed that a 

 single plant of the common shepherd's purse, capsella, 

 produces as many as 12,000 seeds ; and the purslane, 40,- 

 000. Of course only a very few of these seeds will come 

 to maturity, some being destroyed during the seed stage, 

 others after they have become seedlings. 



All Phanerogams, or flowering plants, are grown from 

 the seed, the product of the flower. The shape and size 

 of the seed, its method of distribution, the time that it 

 takes to germinate, all vary to a great extent. To note 

 these differences, to try to account for them, and finall}^ to 



