14 FIEST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



eat haricot beans you are taking the same kind of food 

 as the French bean seedling. SpHt open an acorn, 

 which is another seed that has no seed-flour. Note 

 how small the plantlet is, and how great is the store of 

 food in the two thick halves, and you will understand 

 what a fine start the oak seedling gets in life. Take 

 up the acorn after the seedling has grown for a time, 

 and you will find that the plant has eaten all the food 

 in the acorn halves. Test this also with a wheat plant. 



4. How a Wheat seed grows. And now we can 

 look at the wheat seedlings as they grow behind glass ; 

 and we shall compare them with the French bean 

 seedling. A little white root is pushing its way out 

 from the wrinkled end of one of the seeds. Next 

 time we look, there are three roots, all coming from 

 the wrinkled end, and a tiny green shoot has come 



out from the same place. Root and shoot 

 have broken through the seed-leaf that 

 sheathed them. In the French bean one 

 root only came out from the seed ; but in 

 the wheat several roots come out. Another 

 difference is that all of these wheat roots do 

 not grow straight down like the first root of 

 the French bean. Some of the roots grow 

 sideways as well as downwards. Again, the 

 main root of the French bean shows to the 

 naked eye no hairs ; but in the wheat roots 

 the hairs are so many and so large that you can see 

 them without your lens. But both in French bean 

 and wheat the green shoot grows straight up. 



5. When we next look, we find that the top of the 

 wheat shoot is of a darker green than the lower part 

 of the shoot. Use your lens and you will see that the 



