HOW PLANTS MULTIPLY WITHOUT SEEDS 



149 



Leaves growing out of 

 a pine-apple. 



3. Indeed, in the pine-apple, 

 as you know, the leaves push 

 through the fruit and continue the 

 growth upward. The same thing 

 may now and then be seen in a 

 rose-bloom. Pears, too, are 

 sometimes found with a tuft 

 of leaves growing out of the 

 fruit. 



4. If, now, I tell you that new 

 plants sometimes grow out of a 

 single leaf, you will not be 

 surprised. 



How a single leaf can make new plants. There 

 is a leaf that throws out roots at every notch of the 

 edge when it is placed on damp, warm soil. In this 

 way a crop of new plants may spring up all round 

 the edge. The coleus and the beautiful begonias, 

 so common in our plant-houses, are often multiplied 

 hy leaf-rooting.* Have you ever noticed the little 

 plants that grow on the leaves of some ferns ? Now 

 and then, too, one finds little plants growing on the 

 leaves of water-cress or cabbage. 



5. How a bramble goes on its travels. Here 



is a little bramble 

 plant four inches 

 high, on the north 

 side of a hedge ten 

 feet high. We return 

 jr,^ 1,1 in a year or two, 



Bramble bush rooting. and find that the 



* Cut into the veins slightly where they are strongest, and then press the 

 leaf on warm, moist earth. Do not bury the leaf. 



