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CHRISTMAS ROSE IN WINTER. 



CHAPTERS IN PLANT LIFE 



IV— THE PLANT AS A PARENT 



By S. LEONARD BASTIN 



With Photographs by the Author 



THE first duty of the individual, and 

 one even more important than 

 the preservation of its own life, 

 is the perpetuation of the race. It is easy 

 to think of the care which the animal 

 bestows on its offspring, the food and 

 protection which the parent provides, 

 the fostering of the new generation for 

 its advent into a world of strife. We are 

 not so prone to regard the plant as a 

 parent, responsible for the reproduction 

 and outfitting of its kind. Yet the 

 members of the vegetable kingdom take 

 many extraordinary precautions to ensure 

 the well-being of their progeny, and the 

 study of these forms a very fascinating 

 chapter in the book of Nature. 



In the present instance it is not pro- 

 posed to enter into the wonders of the 



floral marriage, but to presume that the 

 ovary has received the touch necessary 

 for its development, and that the seed is 

 an accomplished fact. Now a seed has 

 never, perhaps, been better described 

 than as a tiny plant wrapped up in a 

 packet of food material. Cutting through 

 the protecting skin of a bean, it is found 

 that the seed easily splits up into two 

 pieces. Between these two cotyledons, 

 as they are called, we shall find the 

 germ — a perfect little plant in which 

 all the parts are plainly discernible, 

 though on a diminutive scale. In the 

 case of the bean, in common with many 

 dicotyledonous plants, the supply of 

 starch for the use of the young jilant is 

 al)sorbcd into the cotyledons. The \'ery 

 large numl^er of seeds possessed of only 



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