A PLANT IS DIVIDED INTO THREE PRINCIPAL PARTS

"CLASS in botany will please rise."

Davy and Prue looked up quickly from their little corner by the peach-tree. It was a warm day, and they were resting in what they called their "house," because it was a shut-in nook behind the corn, and with tall sunflowers on the other side. Just now when the Chief Gardener came upon them they were pulling some flowers to pieces and talking about them very earnestly.

"Class in botany please rise," he said again, taking a seat himself on a bench close by.

"But I can't—it's too warm," said little Prue, "and besides I've got my lap full of flowers."

"Can't the class in botany sit by the teacher?" asked Davy.

The teacher moved over. Prue gathered her dress into an apron, and presently the children were perched one on each side of the Chief Gardener, who fanned himself with his straw hat, for it was a real July day.

"We've been seeing how many of the parts of a plant we knew," said Davy. "We know all the parts, I guess, but of some plants we can't tell which are which."

"Suppose you name the parts for me," said the Chief Gardener.

"Oh, let me! Let me!" began Prue. "I asked first!"

Davy looked a little disappointed, but waited.

"Very well, suppose you try, Prue."

The little maid was excited.

"Why—why, there's the c'roller and the calyx and the pistil and the panthers, and—"

The Chief Gardener laughed in spite of himself, and Davy looked rather shocked.

"She always calls the anthers 'panthers,'" he said, sorrowfully, "and she never will say 'corolla' right."

"And those are not the parts of a plant either," added the Chief Gardener, "but the parts of a flower. A plant is divided into three principal parts. Now, Davy, it's your turn. See if you can tell me what they are."

"Well," began Davy, "the root is one."

"The root is one, Davy; quite right. Now for the others."

"The leaves are another."

"The leaves, yes, the leaves are another."

"And the flower makes three, doesn't it? But then there's the stalk, too. That makes four. There must be four parts."

"There are a great many parts," nodded the Chief Gardener, "but there are only three principal parts—the root, the stem, and the leaf. To a botanist—one who studies plants and how they grow—the flower is only a branch of the stem, and its parts are leaves."

"I suppose that is why rose-petals are called leaves," said little Prue.

"I think it is."

"But—but don't you think a flower ought to be a principal part?" asked Davy.

"Well, it is in a way. It is a particular kind of a principal part, made for a special purpose. But after all, it is really a branch, for it comes from a bud, just as other branches do, and it comes just where any branch would come. Many times you cannot tell whether a bud is going to make a flower or just leaves until it opens. And there are a few queer flowers in the world that can hardly be told from leaves even after they do open."