THE BLOSSOMING PLANTS 23 



They have feet to tuck them firmly into the earth, 

 and mouths, only these are on the feet, to take up 

 the food. They have leaves where the food is made 

 into real nourishment and where the plants breathe. 

 Skin very much like our own covers the whole plant, 

 and httle tendiils hold up the climbing plants as 

 tightly as if they were hands. 



These are not the only ways that plants are like 

 us. They do something besides just growing strong 

 and healthy, with plenty of leaves, just as we do 

 something besides growing into strong, healthy 

 bodies. What the plant does is to blossom. 



When the first bud forms, how interested we all 

 are to watch and see how it will open! There are so 

 many things that we want to know about that 

 blossom. What color will it be? What shape? Will 

 the blossom be a single flower or a cluster of smaller 

 ones? Will it open in the morning like the morning- 

 glory or in the afteriioon like the four-o'clock, or in 

 the evening like the evening primrose? Or will it be 

 open all day and follow the sun about as does the 

 sunflower? 



There are so many different things about the 

 flowers to watch and to think about, and every differ- 

 ent thing about them is for some useful purpose. It 

 is not there just for beauty or for show. The beauti- 

 ful color or the odor; the long tube or the shallow 

 cup; the soft fringe on the edge of some petals; the 

 downy carpet on the curved underpetals of others; 

 the little hairs on the stem and calix ; the stamens, the 

 pistil and the yellow pollen, — all these have a purpose. 



The yellow pollen which is shaken by the stamens 



