SEEDS AND SOWING 



developed enough for microscopic dissection to reveal 

 it plainly, in others it is very rudimentary. 



Usually it has two plump divisions called cotyle- 

 dons — four syllables, cot-y-le-dons, with the accent on 

 the first; there are, however, plants which have more or 

 only one, but they will come later; the cotyledons, if 

 they push their way up through the earth — some do 

 not — spread apart and look to us like leaves. Conse- 

 quently we usually speak of them as the first or seed 

 leaves, although they aren't leaves at all. It is be- 

 tween them and protected by them that the actual 

 growing point of the plant waits — the plumule or true 

 leaf-bud whence the real plant is to arise, with the 

 plant's true leaves. 



The cotyledons are only caretakers — the nurse- 

 maids of the baby plant itself — which feed and guard it 

 until it has grown big enough to draw its own susten- 

 ance, through its true leaves and the little roots that 

 have been keeping pace underground with the leaves' 

 growth, from the elements about. Until a true leaf is 

 formed, every plant lives on the food stored away with 

 it in the seed, no matter how miscroscopic that seed 

 may be. 



Not until the true leaves have developed, generally 

 speaking, are seedlings strong enough to bear handling 

 and transplanting. Some of your seed packets will tell 

 you to transplant when the third leaf appears, or to 

 thin out when the true leaves appear, which means of 

 course the third leaf after the cotyledons in the first 

 instance, the first pair of leaves in the second — for 



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