IV PLANT LIFE 35 



and the fly is free to get out, carrying with it, however, some 

 pollen grains that may be useful to effect cross-fertilisation 

 in another flower. The bright colours of flowers, and their The colour 

 odours, seem to attract insects and other animals concerned odours of 

 in fertilization, and it is generally seen that those flowers *^°wers. 

 dependent on animals for pollination, have some charac- 

 teristic—whether of colour, form, or odour, which serves to 

 attract the attention and invite the visits of their welcome 

 guests. Thus we see that Nature has wisely arranged 

 that, whilst the flowers are feeding the insects, the insects 

 are fertilising the flowers, to the erud that the species may 

 be propagated, and that man and the lower animals may 

 reap a fuller harvest from the soil. 



The Seed, or as it is sometimes called, the plant egg^, is The seed 

 composed of a very small body, the embryo or young plant, bryo'pLnr' 

 and a store of nourishment — made up usually of starch or 

 oil — for the infant plant to feed on until it is able to take 

 up food for itself. The embryo and the food are con- 

 tained within two hard envelopes which protect them from 

 injury. 



The Embryo is the miniature plant, and it is composed The seed 

 of the radicle, or root ; the caulicle, or stem ; one or two for"thryo*^Sg 

 leaves, the cotyledons : and the bud, or plumule — which is pJ^"*^ ""'^^ 

 usually packed away in a little pit at the base of the cotyle- formed. 

 dons. Of course all these parts, which correspond to similar 

 parts of the developed plant, are very simple. They are in 

 fact the rudiments or the unshaped beginnings of the per- 

 fect plant. The nourishment stored up in the seed for the 

 first food of the young plant may be contained in the cotyle- 

 dons — which are then thick and fleshy as in beans ; or it 

 may be apart from the cotyledons, as in the maize and the 

 cocoa-nut ; but all seeds contain a supply of it, for otherwise 

 they would not be able to become developed into plants, as 

 the radicle cannot take up food from the soil until it grows 

 into a regular root. 



D 2 



