WHAT PLANTS DO FOR THEIR YOUNG. 175 



growth ; man appropriates them and disappoints 

 its natural expectations. It is quite different 

 with the succulent fruits, like the date and the 

 plantain, which form in many countries the 

 staple food of great populations ; nature meant 

 those to be eaten by animals, and offered the 

 pulp in return for the benefit of dispersion. 



Finally, when the seed is put into the ground 

 and exposed to warmth and moisture, it begins 

 to germinate. This it does by sending up a 

 small growing shoot towards the light, which 

 soon develops green leaves ; as well as by 

 sending down a root towards the earth, which 

 soon begins to suck up water, together with the 

 dissolved nitrogenous matter. That is the be- 

 ginning of a fresh plant-colony, which thus owes 

 its existence to two separate individuals, a father 

 and a mother. The seed consists of two_ first 

 seed-leaves in the fivefold plants, as you can see 

 very well in a sprouHng bean, and of one such 

 seed-leaf in the threefold division, as you can 

 see very well in a sprouting grain of wheat, or, 

 still better, a lily seed. These earliest leaves 

 are technically known as seed-leaves or cotyle- 

 dons, and that is why the fivefold plants are 

 known to botanists by the awkward name of 

 dicotyledons, while the threefold are called 

 monocotyledons. These names mean merely 

 plants with two or with one seed-leaf. 



