GERMINATION OF THE SEED. 



to the autumnal blasts, and even the fruits themselves, becoming a mass of de- 

 cayed matter. Were this appearance of decay and death now presented to us for 

 tlie tirst time, how gloomy would be the prospect ! How little should we expect 

 the return of life, and beauty, and fragrance! No power short of Omnipotence 

 could effect this ; it is indeed a miracle ! But we are so accustomed to these 

 changes, that, "seeing, we perceive not;" we think not of the mighty Being who 

 produces them; we call them the ojjerations of nature ; but what is nature, or the 

 laivs of nature, other than manifestations of Ahnighty power ? The word nature, 

 in its original sense, signifies born, or jyroduced ; — let us, then, look on nature as a 

 creation, and beware of yielding that homage to the creature which is due to the 

 Creator. The skeptic may talk with seeming rapture of the beauties of nature, 

 but cold and insensible must be that heart, which, from the contemplation of the 

 earth around, and the heavens above, soars not to Him, 



" The mighty Power from wliom these wonders are." 

 . How impressively is the reanimation of the vegetable world urged by St. Paul, 

 as an argument to prove the resurrection from the dead! The same power, which 

 from a dry, and apparently dead seed, can bring forth a fresh and beautiful plant, 

 can assuredly; from the ruins of our mortal frame, produce a new and glorious 

 body, and unite it to the immortal spirit by ties never to be separated ! Leaving 

 the external organs of the plant, we are now to enter the inner temple of nature, 

 and to examine into those wonderful operations by wliich vegetable life is called 

 into action and sustained. 



114. Germination. — ^The process of the shooting forth of the 

 new plant is called germination. The principle of life contained 

 in the seed does not iisnally become active until the seed is placed 

 in circumstances favorable to vegetation. When committed to 

 the bosom of the earth, its various parts soon begin to dilate 

 by absorbing moisture. Chemical action then commences ; 

 oxygen from the air unites to the cajrhon of the seed and carries 

 it oif in the form of carhonio acid gas. As the carbon of the 

 cotyledons by this jDrocess continues to diminish, and oxygen 

 is produced in excess, a sweet, sugar-like substance is formed ; 

 this being conveyed to the embryo, it is by its 

 new nourishment kindled into active life ; from 

 this period we may date the existence of the 

 young ^lant. The embryo bursts through its in- 

 teguments, which dissolve by their loss of carbon ; 

 the radicle shoots downward, and the plume rises 

 U2)ward. We then say the seed has come up. 



Fig. 119 represents a young dicotyledonous plant, with its 

 radicle, a, developed ; its plume, h, issuing as a bud from the first 

 node of the axis, is yet scarcely perceptible; its cotyledons, cc, 

 appear in the form of large, succulent seeddeaves. The radinle 

 seeks in the soil nourishment for the future plant, ant! to fix it 

 firmly in tlie earth. It always takes a downward course, in whatever situatir«r 

 the seed may have been placed in the ground. A Botanist once planted in a pcn, 

 six acorns, with the radicular points of their embryos upward. At 

 the end of two months, upon removing the earth, he fountl that all F'?- 130- 



the radicles had made an angle, in order to reach downward. 



Fig. 120 is a representation of a germinating seed of the MhahUis 

 (four-o'clock) ; it will be seen that the radicle, o, lias made nearly a 

 right angle in turning downward ; the plume is not developed. I'lace 



114. Germination— Effector o.xygen— Of the loss of carbon— Direction of the radicle— Describe the 

 ijrpenmeiit_,wuh acorns— Describe Fi". 120. 



