CHAPTER VI 



SEED AND ROOT 



Then rise the tender germs, upstarting quick 



And spreading wide their spongy lobes, at first 



Pale, wan, and livid ; but assuming soon, 



If fanned by balmy and nutritious air,* 



A vivid green. COWPER. 



" r MHE nature of everything," says Lord Bacon, " is best considered in 

 -*- the seed" an aphorism which contains a truth of very wide 

 application, though it is only quoted here because the first part of our 

 subject is the seeds of plants. That the nature of the Plant is best 

 seen in the seed is a truism which perhaps every physiologist would be 

 willing to admit, and we shall probably be as ready to make a similar 

 admission after weighing a few of the facts with which it is proposed 

 immediately to deal. 



When the reign of the Frost-spirit is over, and the earth is brought 

 once more under the mild and vivifying influence of the spring, a large 

 proportion of the seeds confided to the ground, either recently or at the 

 end of the preceding autumn, swell, and release from their envelopes the 

 precious germs which they have held in ward during the intervening 

 months, and which, endowed with a life of their own, soon imbibe freely 

 their nutriment from the atmosphere and the soil. Such is, in essence, the 

 phenomenon of germination, the simplicity of which is perhaps not less 

 wonderful than the results achieved are manifold and surprising. We say 

 " in essence," for when we come to consider the phenomenon in detail, a 

 surprising variety confronts us. Let us consider a few examples. 



The majority of Fungi are propagated by minute dust-like spores, which 



_ differ from seeds in containing no 

 embryo or young plant, but simply a 



^T^"X tiny mass of living matter. Kick a 



^pr r ip e puff-ball the dusty powder that 



flies out consists of thousands of these 

 spores. Or if we select as our type 



the Common Mushroom (Agaric as carn,- 

 FIG. 197. MOREL (Morchella esculenta). 

 A spore of this edible fungus, and another in process The P oet mi S ht h ^e added, " And fostered 



of germination. by the light-dispensing sun." 



160 



