HOW SEEDS GBEMINATE 13 



II.— HOW SEEDS GERMINATE.— Pabt II. 



1. Seeds with one seed-leaf. We have watched 

 the germination of the French bean, a seed that has 

 two seed-leaves. Most of our garden plants have two 

 seed-leaves, but the grasses, lilies and some other 

 plants have only one seed-leaf, Now, no garden plant 

 is so important as the wheat plant — the queen of the 

 grasses ; and so we must look closely at the seed of 

 wheat, and then watch how it germinates. 



2. What is inside a Wheat-seed. Slice open a 

 well-soaked wheat seed, using a sharp knife. 

 The seed does not split into halves like the 

 French bean, and so we must cut through. 

 Cut downwards from the hairy end to the 

 wrinkled end. The knife passes through 



Fi6 5 white "flour," and lays bare the plantlet 

 Wheat seed lying between the wrinkled end and the 

 s h o^™V/; flour. The plantlet is a little disc of a dull 

 (&), the white colour quite different from the white 

 of the flour. This disc is the seed-leaf ; 

 and its business is to cover the plantlet and to feed 

 on the flour. The true leaves cannot yet be seen, nor 

 can the little root be seen. The flour is the food that 

 gives the young plant a start in life before it can 

 gather food for itself. The flour is stored up to feed 

 the seedling just as the white of an egg is stored up 

 to feed a chicken. 



3. But here you say : " There is no flour in the 

 French bean ; how then does the seedling get its food.?" 

 It feeds, I reply, on the thick seed-leaves. When you 



