74 



THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



Fig. 13.— a, male, and B, female flower 

 of a sedge, much magnified. The 

 sexes are here quite distinct and un- 

 like. 



the very lowest cases of any nothing in the least 

 resembling a blossom. Very simple plants, in fact, 



have two ways of 

 reproducing. The 

 earliest way is, 

 when a single cell 

 divides in the mid- 

 dle, to form two 

 others ; a some- 

 what less primi- 

 tive way is when a 

 single cell breaks 

 suddenly up, and 

 produces from it- 

 self a whole swarm 

 of young ones. In 

 both these ways, 

 however, there is 

 no trace of sex ; only one single cell is concerned 

 in the process ; the plants have a mother, perhaps, 

 but certainly not a father. 



The thread-like pond-weeds, however, which 

 are slightly higher plants in the scale of being 

 than the single-celled floating types, show us the 

 first beginnings of something like plant-marriage. 

 These hair-like little weeds consist each of a single 

 thread or string of cells, placed end on end to- 

 gether, like beads or pearls in a necklet, and con- 

 taining green chlorophyll. You can find them in 

 almost any stagnant pond in spring, where they 

 cling to the side in soft greenish moss-like or vel- 

 vety masses. But if you examine one slimy string 

 under a microscope, you will see a curious thing 

 often happening between the threads of two such 

 hair-like plants. As they grow side by side, two 

 of the strings will sometimes range themselves 



