GREEN PLANTS SOLVE LIFE PROBLEMS 261 



Water film 

 -Soilparticle 



The prolongation is called a root hair. Each 



rootlet is provided with thousands of these tiny 



absorbing organs. 



but you will also find 



the leaves are so placed 



that if you could look 



down in them, they 



would form a contin- 

 uous pavement of flat 



leaves, each crowded in 



between its neighbor 



and each getting all 



the light possible. 

 Green Leaves Make 



Food. Green plants 



almost always have leaves. These flat green structures are 



of various shapes and the soft green tissues are supported 



by veins. The veins are really 

 bundles of tiny woody tubes 

 which carry water up from the 

 roots to the leaves and food 

 down from the leaves to other 

 parts of the plant. The sur- 

 face of the leaf, usually its un- 

 der surface, is filled with tiny 

 breathing holes called stomata. 

 The leaf is a complicated food 

 factory in which the power to 

 do work is provided by the 

 sun, the raw materials sup- 

 plied from the air through the 

 stomata and from the roots by 

 the veins. The work is done 

 to cW<y<ru:f in the green part of the leaf. 

 Carbon dioxide from the air 

 and soil water from the roots 

 are combined into food in the 

 tenais to make food. green parts of the plant, while 



part of air-, 

 carbon. cCLoxi.de 

 is taken, in by 



side/ <5 leaf 



