




49 THE GROWTH AND PARTS OF PLANTS 
or oak, or other tree different in form when it grows 
alone in a field from what it 1s when grown in a 
forest? Can you tell why? © 
Prostrate plants. ‘he pimpernel, moneywort, and 
others are prostrate or creeping. You can find other 
plants which show all forms between the prostrate and 
the erect habit. 
THE DURATION OF PLANTS 
Annuals. Many of the flowers and weeds of the 
field and garden start from seeds in the springtime and 
ripen a new crop of seeds in late spring, in summer, or 
in autumn. Then the plant dies. It must be very 
clear to us that a plant which starts from the tiny 
embryo in the seed, forms the full-grown plant, flowers, 
ripens its seed in a single growing season, and then dies, 
has spent its life for the main purpose of forming the 
seed. The seed can dry without harming the young 
plantlet within. a 
Do you know that the seeds of many plants lie in~ 
the cold ground all winter without killing the embryo? 
These plants live and grow, therefore, to form seed, so 
that their kind may be perpetuated from year to year. 
Plants which live for a single season we call annuals. 
Beans, peas, maize, buckwheat, wheat, convolvulus, 
chickweed, ete., are annuals, 
