Chapter I 
PLANTS WITHOUT SEEDS 
r I ^HE green scum that floats on ponds of 
stale water is made of many hundreds of 
small plants. There are usually many kinds of What is the 
these plants in one pond, but they are all very 
small. Each plant is only one cell. A cell is a 
mass of living matter enclosed in a wall which 
protects it. Every cell is so small that it can be 
seen only through a microscope. Every living 
thing is made up of cells. These tiny plants 
which grow in the ponds have just one cell, but 
in spite of their small size, they are independent 
and well able to do all of the different kinds of 
plant work. 
A plant, no matter what its size, has three 
kinds of work to do: it must grow; it must get 
food; and it must always provide for the 
growth of new plants. 
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