46 LESSONS WITE PLANTS 



43. These buds open with surprising quickness 

 when spring conies (particularly at the north). The 

 buds have been entirely inactive all winter, so far 

 as we could see; and, moreover, they are just the 

 same shape and size in the spring as they were 

 when the leaves dropped in the fall. We must 

 conclude, then, that these leaves and an embryo 

 shoot were packed away in the bud during the 

 growing season of last year; and this is true. 



44. The pupil can still further satisfy himself of 

 the truth of this conclusion by taking into the 

 house during the winter a twig from a tree or bush, 

 and keeping it in water in a warm room. In a 

 few weeks, it will produce leaves, and also flowers, 

 if it bears flower-buds. This experiment also shows 

 that the first leaves and flowers which come out 

 on early spring-flowering trees and bushes are sus- 

 tained by nourishment which is stored up in the 

 branch or the bud, not by that taken in at the 

 time by the roots. 



45. Let the pupil examine a rapidly-growing 

 shoot of any plant in spring or very early summer. 

 He will not find the large buds which he sees in 

 fall and winter. He concludes, therefore, that the 

 plant does not need ' these large buds for purposes 

 of growth. Plants must have a means of carry- 

 ing the growing points over winter (or over the 

 dry or inactive season, in the tropics) ; and in 



