ENDOGENS OR MONOCOTYLEDONS 



Seed-bearing plants are first divided into those that do 

 not enclose their seeds in an ovary and those that do. 

 Pines and other cone-bearers belong to the lower, or naked- 

 seeded group, as it is called. But it is only when the cones 

 are very small that the seeds, or rather, the ovules, are 

 uncovered ; they then lie where the pollen can reach them 

 directly, there being no ovary, style, or stigma ; but the 

 scales of the cone soon close about the developing seeds, 

 and in the end they are better protected than most other 

 seeds. So, unless you are a botanist and study the repro- 

 duction of plants with the microscope, it will hardly seem 

 just to you to rank the sturdy group of cone-bearers lower 

 than many insignificant little weeds. 



Perhaps you have seen the pines rising above the winter 

 snows on our mountains, and have read of the great 

 stretches of pine forests in cold north countries like Norway 

 or Siberia, or the colder parts of our own country. In fact, 

 cone-bearers can generally brave cold better than drought, 

 and in many parts of California they do not grow without 

 irrigation. The Monterey cypress is a cone-bearer much 

 used all over California for hedges and windbreaks ; the 

 trimmed trees are stiff and uninteresting, but near Monterey 

 the cypresses grow naturally on the wild, rocky coast, some- 

 times where the salt water splashes them, and artists love 

 to picture these sturdy old trees with their knotted, twisted 

 limbs, draped with long grey lichens. 



The' California " big trees," too, are cone-bearers; they 

 are famous the world over, and you probably know some 

 wonderful stories about them. They are a kind of red- 

 wood, and are found only in the Sierras, but there is 

 another kind of redwood that grows in the magnificent 

 forests along the northern coast of California; the story of 

 how the lumbermen cut, haul, and saw these trees is very 

 interesting. The northern Pacific coast has, too, some of 

 the finest pine trees in the world. Can you think of some 

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