THE LIFE OF A PRIMROSE, 
153 
> rudiment of 
If you peel the two skins off your almond-seed (the 
thick, brown, outside skin, and the thin, transparent 
one under it), the two halves of the almond will 
slip apart quite easily. One of these 
halves will have a small dent at the 
pointed end, while in the other half 
you will see a little lump, which fitted 
into the dent when the two halves were 
joined. This little lump (a b, Fig. 37) 
is a young plant, and the two halves of 
the almond are the seed-leaves which 
hold the plantlet, and feed it till it 
can feed itself. The rounded end of the Halfanalmond 
plantlet (b) sticking out of the almond, showing the 
is the beginning of the root, while the plantlet. 
other end (a) will in time become the 
stem. If you look carefully, you will 
see two little points at this end, which 
are the tips of future leaves. Only think how minute 
this plantlet must be in a primrose, where the whole 
seed is scarcely larger than a grain of sand ! Yet 
in this tiny plantlet lies hid the life of the future 
plant. 
When a seed falls into the ground, so long as the 
earth is cold and dry, it lies like a person in a trance, 
as if it were dead ; but as soon as the warm, damp 
spring comes, and the busy little sun-waves pierce 
down into the earth, they wake up the plantlet, and 
make it bestir itself. They agitate to and fro the 
particles of matter in this tiny body, and cause them 
to seek out for other particles to seize and join to 
themselves. 
