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FIRST BOOK. 
fruits; but there are some plants, such as ferns 
and mosses, which never bear true flowers. 
6. A flowering plant has roots, stem, leaves, 
flowers, and fruits. To bear fruit is the work 
that it lives to do, for the fruit holds the seeds, 
from which new plants of the same kind grow. 
7. The roots usually go down into the soil, out 
of sight, while the stem rises above ground, or 
creeps along it. But some roots, as you may 
have often seen, grow in the air, either clinging 
to trees, like those of the five-finger, or hang- 
ing towards the earth, like those of the mangrove 
and some orchids. 
8. A plant that never has flowers cannot have 
seeds, because seeds grow from flowers. How, 
then, can young plants of such a kind begin to 
grow? 
9. To know this, you should look at the back 
of a fern-frond. There you may see a great 
many tiny brown specks crowded together. Those 
are clusters of little cases in which spores, looking 
like fine dust, are held; and from these spores 
young ferns will grow. j 
10. If there were no plants in the world, there 
would not be any animals, for there would not 
be food for them. You know that animals feed 
upon plants, or else upon other animals that have 
done so i 
