104 



FIRST STUDIES IN PLANT LIFE 



7. How the seed is thrown off. Take now a 

 flower in the seeding stage, but not quite ripe. At 

 this stage it looks Hke the long tapering bill of a 

 stork. The hairy, green body which formed the upper 

 part of the seed-case has now lengthened into a long 



column marked by five red lines. 

 You guess at once that these five 

 red lines run down to the five 

 seed-cases. Looking now at a 

 riper flower, you can clearly see 

 that this is correct. Each red 

 line has become a long, narrow 

 stalk, which is ready to jerk its 

 seed away from the column 

 When quite ripe, these stalks 

 become elastic, and curl up sud- 

 denly so that the seed in the 

 seed-case is thrown into the air 



(fig. 72). This is one of a thousand plans that plants 



have for scattering their seed. 



8. The five-fold flowers. We have now seen 

 that the flower is made up of four separate rings or 

 whorls , the first ring being the sepals, the second the 

 petals, the third the stamens, and the fourth the 

 pistil. No doubt you have noticed that the numbers 

 in three of the rings go by fives ; and we may suppose 

 that the ten stamens were, in earlier times, in two 

 rows of five each. You must not suppose that in all 

 flowers the rings go by fives. In some they go by 

 threes ; but the five-fold plan is the one that we find 

 in most of our familiar flowers. With a few exceptions, 

 like the wall-flower, the plants that have two seed- 

 leaves have the five-fold plan. Plants that grow from 



Wild gtiranium about to 

 throw its last seed. 

 also fig. 94. 



See 



