THE LIFE OF A PRIMROSE. 
157 
(a b, Fig. 39) 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 plantlet (b) sticking out of the al- 
mond, is the beginning of the root, while 
the 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 prim- 
rose, where the whole seed is scarcely 
larger than a grain of sand ! Yet in this FIG. 39. Half 
tiny plantlet lies hid the life of the future an a ] mon <*> 
plant. 
When the seed falls into the ground, Rudiment of 
so long as the earth is cold and dry, it stem. 6, Be- 
lies like a person in a trance, as if it were g innin g of 
dead ; but as soon as the warm, damp root> 
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 par- 
ticles of matter in this tiny body, and cause them to 
seek out for other particles to seize and join to them- 
selves. 
But these new particles can not come in at the 
roots, for the seed has none; nor through the leaves, 
for they have not yet grown up; and so the plantlet 
begins by helping itself to the store of food laid up in 
the thick seed-leaves in which it is buried. Here it 
finds starch, oils, sugar, and substances called albu- 
minoids the sticky matter which you notice in wheat- 
grains when you chew them is one of the albumi- 
