SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. 
65 
tiny plant, or germ , as it is called, amongst the 
much larger mass of food. Or, place some beans 
and some corn upon wet cocoa-nut fibre, where you 
may watch the growth of the young buds and roots. 
Then you will see the two nursing-leaves (or seed- 
leaves) of the bean shrink and wither, as their store 
of food gets used up; and you will discover that 
the corn, like many other plants, has not two seed- 
leaves, but only one. 
9. You will notice, also, that the radicle of the 
corn gives out several fibres from its blunt end; 
while in the bean the radicle itself lengthens, forming 
a tap-root 
SEEDS AND SEEDLINGS. — II. 
1. In some seedlings — for instance, in coffee — 
the growing stem carries the two nursing-leaves up 
into the air, where they throw off their seed-skin 
and become green. Then they draw in food from 
the air to make up for the short supply which they 
had at first. They are, however, very different in 
shape from the true leaves that grow afterwards, as 
may be well seen in the gourd and the mustard. 
2. Perhaps you wonder how the baby plant feeds 
when the store of food lies quite outside it, as in 
the seeds of the corn, palm, castor-oil, and coffee. 
In that case the seed-leaf sucks in the food that is 
packed near it, and in that way the plant is fed. 
(M 387) ' E 
