58 THE PLANT: A GENERAL EXTERNAL VIEW 



structure which develops into the new plant. That struc- 

 ture is the embryo. It is produced as a result of the union 

 of portions from the bodies of separate parents. The ex- 

 planation of this process, and of the structures concerned 

 with it, will have to wait until after you have studied the 

 flower and its parts. It will then be much easier to under- 

 stand. It is in the center of the flower that this process 

 occurs, and the portions which unite are much too small 

 to be seen with the naked eye. 



Flower, fruit, and seed all have to do with sex repro- 

 duction. Though no one of them is itself a sex organ, 

 they are all devoted to helping in one way or another in 

 the fulfillment of reproduction by this method. 



19. Flowers. — Stems and roots and leaves we take 

 for granted. There is not much about them to make us 

 exclaim ; not much that we see in them surprises us. But 

 it is not so with flowers. We exclaim at their beauty. 

 Their form and fragrance and color constantly surprise 

 and delight us. Even when we were little children, flowers 

 delighted us. As we grow older we seem to enjoy them 

 more and more. 



When a child, your first consciousness of plants was a 

 consciousness of the bright colors of flowers, was it not? 

 You were conscious of flowers first, and of the plants which 

 bear them afterwards, were you not? The other parts of 

 plants gratify primarily our physical needs, but flowers 

 gratify a love of beauty which savages and children have 

 as well as educated people. We are impelled to learn 

 more of them by our enjoyment of their beauty, as well 

 as by our desire to know more about an organ upon which 

 the production of new plants depends. 



