GERMINATION OF SEEDS 



change within the seed the nutritive matter therein, 

 the starch, oil, gluten, dextrine, etc., passing first by 

 conversion partly into sugar, and then into the plasma 

 and the succulent vessels ot the new growth, furnish 

 by their oxidation, or running down the scale of 

 molecular combination, the needed energy. This 

 now finds expression partly in heat, but mainly in 

 forming the new plasmodium, building up new cells, 

 new corpuscles, new tissues and new leaves, until the 

 original nutriment within the seed shell is exhausted, 

 and the infant life, now strong in its own radicles and 

 leaves, can independently enter the field of the inor- 

 ganic world, and, provided with chlorophyll, struggle 

 for its own existence. 



Many plants, after shedding their seeds, at once 

 wither and die. The continuance of their species 

 is provided for sufficiently by the future growth from 

 the seeds, and depends absolutely upon the new life 

 only that is to issue therefrom. But should the de- 

 velopment of the flower or seed be prevented by 

 transferring the plant from its native climate to one 

 so much colder that the flower and seeds have not 

 time to receive the needed heat to ripen, or if the 

 flowers as they begin to form are nipped off; the 

 plant does not die, but forms on or near the root bud- 

 like swellings, which develop into scions or layers 

 (often called suckers), which preserve the life, and in 



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