38 OUR WOODLAND TREES. 
embryo, succeeds in first bursting and finally 
throwing them off. The seed-like form of the 
plant germ is now no longer apparent. We have 
the plantlet-—immature and undefined as yet— 
but freed from its enveloping shrowd: the joined 
plumule and radicle fixed—like a swimmer sup- 
ported by corks—between the twin cotyledons. 
And now, for a brief space, these small, but 
well-nourished bodies, perform the kind and 
useful office of nurses to the incipient stem and 
root. We shall see anon how the last-named 
organs, when they have reached a certain stage of 
their early growth, begin to provide themselves— 
by the aid of some very simple but very beautiful 
organs—with their natural food. Meanwhile, 
their earliest supplies of the nourishment neces- 
sary to qualify them for self-support are provided 
by the cotyledons. The elongation of the radicle 
and of the plumule, is, however, continued but a 
short distance before these organs commence 
their self-supplying functions. 
The radicle becoming, by enlargement and 
elongation a root, the latter commences to 
multiply itself by giving off branches which, being 
