102 Field, Forest, and Wayside Flowers 
are seen under the microscope to be beautiful 
also (Fig. 17). 
The newly-made starch in leaves appears in tiny 
grains inside the chlorophyll bodies, or close be- 
side them. It does not remain there and grow 
into larger starch-grains, but with the withdrawal 
of sunlight. it seems to melt away and disappear. 
The starch has been dissolved, or rather changed, 
into fluid glucose, and this is gradually drawn 
through cell-wall after cell-wall till it reaches some 
actively-growing part of the plant, where it is 
used at once, or some permanent tissue, where it 
is turned into starch again, and stored away to 
meet the needs of the future. 
In spring all the starch which the leaves can 
make is changed to glucose and used immedi- 
ately for growth. But in latter summer the plant 
puts it away. In some cases the starch is saved 
in wood, pith, bark, or tubers to feed next spring’s 
shoots; in others it is packed into seeds, where it 
supports the plant’s children in their infancy. 
If a tree is hewn down in winter the cells of 
its wood are found to contain innumerable starch- 
grains. When nature takes her course these are 
converted into glucose during the first warm days 
of spring, and the pushing buds are fed with it. 
