24 BOTANY 
eating it, pass the stone undigested, and thus serve to 
distribute the seed. There is a vast variety of fruits, 
dry or succulent, light or heavy, solid or hollow, 
opening or non-opening—all adapted to the particular 
surroundings in which the plant and its aneestors have 
lived. To deal with the modification of fruits would 
be to anticipate the whole subject, so that further 
discussion must be left for another place. 
3. The Seed (Fig. 10) can hardly be called an organ 
of the plant. It is in reality the form in which the 
individual plant sets free its offspring to battle for 
itself. It is the young plant of the new generation, 
together with a store of food provided by its parent 
to tide it over the initial difficulties of getting into 
due relation with its environment, in other words to 
feed it till it ean gather food for itself. 
Remove the skin from the bean seed and spht 
apart the two fleshy seed leaves or cotyledons, which 
contain the store of reserve material with which the 
young plant begins its development. Between the 
cotyledons appears.the tiny plant, even at this early 
stage showing a differentiation into radicle or young 
root and plumule or young stem. Further consideration 
of the seed will be deferred till we deal with 
germination. 
At this stage it may be well once more to insist on the 
need for field botany. The student should first 
make himself familiar with the weeds and other 
wild plants in his garden or playground, then 
study those in waste places and by the roadside, 
and finally make expeditions to the bush, the 
marshes, and the seashore further to extend his 
knowledge. It will at first be impossible in most cases 
for him to name the specimens himself (for even an 
expert botanist may find it hard to identify an 
