CALIFORNIA PLANTS IN THEIR HOMES 



Fig. 20. EARLY SEEDLINGS. 

 1. Fox-tail grass. . 2. Malva. 3. Filaree. 4. Bur-clover. 



the root can grow down at once. And the seeds are better 

 off in the bur than they would be in the ground, because 

 they are protected and, at the same time, are likely to be 

 carried away in the bur to some place where they will have 

 more room to grow. 



Perhaps, after the first rain, there were weeks of hot, 

 dry weather, and the little seedlings that came up first died 

 of thirst; but nature seems always to have a reserve supply, 

 buried deeper, perhaps, and sooner or later the hills and 

 fields have their carpet of green. Now the seedlings that 

 form this carpet have but a few months to live, and their 

 lives, which seem so short to us, must be very busy ones 

 indeed. There is usually plenty of water at this time of 

 year, and the sun is no longer to be feared, but has become 

 a genial friend. And how the little plants reach out to 

 him! Notice the malva leaves in the morning, and again 

 at noon and towards evening. All day long the leaves 

 turn on their stems so as to directly face the sun, for the 

 sun's rays furnish the power for the food-making that is 

 going on in the millions of laboratory cells packed so closely 

 just beneath the upper surface of the leaf. The bur-clover, 

 too, holds up its leaves to the sun. One kind of filaree, 

 when it has room, spreads out flat in pretty leaf rosettes, 



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