Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

A SCHOOLROOM GARDEN

I want you children to do a little gardening in the schoolroom. You will enjoy this, I am sure.

When I was a child, I took great delight in the experiments that I am going to suggest to you; and now that I am grown up, I find they please me even more than they did years ago.

During the past week I have been doing this sort of gardening; and I have become so interested in the plant babies which I have helped into the world, that I have not been at all ready to stop playing with them, even for the sake of sitting down to tell you about them.

To start my garden, I had first to get some seeds. So I put on my hat and went down to the little shop in the village, half of which is given up to tailor work, while the other half is devoted to flower raising. The gray-bearded florist tailor who runs this queer little place was greatly interested when he heard that I wanted the seeds so that I might tell you children something of their strange ways.

“Seeds air mighty interestin’ things,” he said. “Be you young or be you old, there’s nothin’ sets you thinkin’ like a seed.”

Perhaps the florist tailor had been fortunate in his friends; for I have known both grown-up people and children who year after year could see the wonder of seed and baby plant, of flower and fruit, without once stopping to say, “What brings about these changes?”

To “set thinking” some people would take an earthquake or an avalanche; but when this sort of thing is needed to start their brains working, the “thinking” is not likely to be good for much.

But I hope that some of you will find plenty to think about in the seeds which your teacher is going to show you; and I hope that these thoughts may be the beginning of an interest and curiosity that will last as long as you live.

The seeds which I got that morning were those of the bean, squash, pea, and corn; and your teacher has been good enough to get for you these same seeds, and she will show you how to do with them just what I have been doing this past week.

First, I filled a pot with finely sifted earth, and planted the different seeds; then I filled a glass with water, floated some cotton wool upon its surface, and in this wool laid some beans; and then my garden planting was done.

During the following days I kept the earth in the pot slightly moist. The cotton wool in the glass of water did this for itself.

And how carefully I watched my two little gardens!

For three days the pot of earth kept its secret. Nothing happened there, so far as I could see. But the beans that were laid upon the cotton wool grew fat and big by the second day, just like those that your teacher soaked over night; and by the third day their seed coats had ripped open a little way, just as your coat would rip open if it were tightly buttoned up and suddenly you grew very fat; and out of the rip in the seed coat peeped a tiny white thing, looking like the bill of a chick that is pecking its way out of the eggshell which has become too small to hold it.

Very quickly this little white tip grew longer. It curved over and bent downward, piercing its way through the cotton wool into the water.

Fig. 88

About this time the pot garden began to show signs of a disturbance. Here and there I saw what looked like the top of a thick green hoop (Fig. [88]).

What had happened, do you think?

Why, first this bean had sucked in from the damp earth so much water that it had grown too fat and big for the seed coat; and it had torn this open, just like the other bean, pushing out its little white tip; and this tip had bent down into the earth and taken a good hold there, lengthening into a real root, and sending out little root hairs that fastened it down still more firmly.

Fig. 89

But it was not satisfied to do all its growing below. Its upper part now straightened itself out, and started right up into the air. From a hoop it turned into a stem which lifted the bean clear above the earth (Fig. [89]).

This bean was no longer the round object we usually call by that name; for its two halves had opened and spread outward, and from between these two halves grew a pair of young leaves.

As these leaves grew larger, the two half-beans began to shrink, growing smaller and more withered all the time (Fig. [90]).

Why was this, do you suppose?

To make clear the reason of this, to show just why the two halves of the bean grew smaller as the rest of the young bean plant grew larger, I must go back a way.

Turn to the picture of the peony seed (Fig. [84]). There you can see how the baby plant is packed away in the midst of a quantity of baby food. And in the picture of the morning-glory seed (Fig. [86]) you see the same thing.

You remember that day by day the baby plant ate more and more of this food, and kept growing stronger and bigger, and that all this time the store of food kept growing smaller and smaller.

Now, if you cut open the bean, you do not see a tiny plant set in the midst of a store of food.

Fig. 90

Why is this? This is because the baby bean plant keeps its food in its own leaves.

The seed coat of the bean is filled by these leaves, for each half of the bean is really a seed leaf. In these two thick leaves is stored all the food that is necessary to the life of the baby plant; and because of all this food which they hold, the bean plant is able to get a better start in life than many other young plants.

If you soak and strip off its seed coat, and pull apart the two thick leaves, you will find a tiny pair of new leaves already started (Fig. [91]); but you will see nothing of the sort in the seed of the morning-glory, for the reason that this is not so well stored with baby food as to be able to do more than get its seed leaves well under way.

The pea, like the bean, is so full of food, that it also is able to take care of a second pair of leaves.

But now to go back to the young bean plant in the schoolroom garden. We were wondering why the two halves of the bean, which are really the first pair of leaves, kept growing thinner and smaller as the second pair grew larger.

Fig. 91

Perhaps you guess now the reason for this. These first leaves, called the seed leaves, feed all the rest of the young bean plant.

Of course, as they keep on doing this, they must themselves shrink away; but they do not cease with their work till the plant is able to take care of itself.

By this time, however, the seed leaves have nothing left to live upon. They die of starvation, and soon fade and disappear.

So now you understand just what has happened to the leaves that once were so fat and large.

And I hope you will remember the difference between the seed of the morning-glory and that of the bean,—how the morning-glory packs the baby food inside the seed, of course, but outside the baby plant; while the bean packs it inside the two seed leaves, which are so thick that there is no room for anything else within the seed coat.

But really, to understand all that I have been telling you, you must see it for yourselves; you must hold in your hands the dried bean; you must examine it, and make sure that its seed shell is filled entirely by the baby plant; you must see it grow plump and big from the water which it has been drinking; you must watch with sharp eyes for that first little rip in the seed coat, and for the putting-out of the tiny tip, which grows later into stem and root; you must notice how the bent stem straightens out, and lifts the thick seed leaves up into the air; and you must observe how that other pair of leaves, which grows from between the seed leaves, becomes larger and larger as the seed leaves grow smaller and thinner, and how, when the little plant is able to hold its own in the world, the seed leaves die away.

And if day by day you follow this young life, with the real wish to discover its secret, you will begin to understand what the wise old florist tailor meant when he said,—

“Be you young or be you old, there’s nothin’ sets you thinkin’ like a seed.”

Fig. 92

A SCHOOLROOM GARDEN (Concluded)

The picture at the top of this page (Fig. [92]) shows you how the young squash plant comes into the world; for you remember that in my pot garden I planted some squash seeds. And I hope that in your schoolroom garden you will watch this plant as it makes its first appearance.

The baby food of the squash vine, like that of the bean, is stored away inside the seed leaves, which on this account are so large that they quite fill the seed shell. They are not so thick as those of the bean, but thick enough to hold all the nourishment that is needed to keep the young plant alive and hearty until it is big enough to shift for itself.

Very soon after this seed is laid in warm, moist earth, its little plant begins to grow too large for the seed shell, and the white stem is pushed out through the hole you notice at one end of the seed. This stem forces its way into the earth below, and puts out a root, and root fingers. And now its upper part begins to lengthen out and to straighten itself. In doing this, it pulls the two seed leaves right out of the seed coat. If it fails at once to get rid of the seed coat, it lifts this up into the air, on top of its leaves.

Fig. 93

Often the young maple tree comes into the world in this way, carrying its seed coat on top of its seed leaves. The maple is another plant that packs its baby food within the seed leaves instead of round about them. Perhaps your teacher has saved for you some maple keys (Fig. [93]), as the fruit of the maple tree is called. If you split open a maple key, you will find hidden within one of its halves (Fig. [94]) the beautiful baby tree. This is folded away so neatly that one is tempted to split open one key after another, for the pleasure of unpacking other delicate baby maples (Fig. [95]).

Fig. 94

But now let us find out what has happened to the peas which I planted.

Fig. 95

Peas seem to us so much like beans, that perhaps you think the young pea baby comes into the world in the same way as the bean plant; but surely we have nothing here that looks at all like the bean plant.

We see some stems having small, thin, green leaves.

Where are the fat seed leaves, filled with the baby food that keeps the plant alive? They are not in sight, certainly, so we must start a hunt for them.

If you will carefully remove the earth from about this little pea plant, you will soon find that the pea seed from which it is growing lies buried in the earth (Fig. [96]). This pea seed, like that of the bean, is made up chiefly of what really are two seed leaves, although in the case of the pea it may seem only as a matter of politeness that we give them the name of “leaves;” for in the pea these seed leaves lie buried in the earth, and split open just enough to allow the little pea plant to grow up into the air.

Fig. 96

But like the seed leaves of the bean, they are fat and full of food, and care for the young plant just as devotedly as did those of the bean. When this young plant needs them no more, like those of the bean, they die of starvation.

Fig. 97

Within the acorn, the seed leaves of the great oak tree grow together. These lie quietly in the acorn shell while sending out supplies of food to the root and stem and leaves of the young oak (Fig. [97]). Walnut and chestnut leaves act much in the same manner. But these first leaves of the walnut do not grow together, as you know. Each one is packed away separately in half of the walnut shell.

The corn has but one seed leaf, which makes it unlike all the other plants about which we have been reading; but it resembles the pea, the acorn, the walnut, and the chestnut in this,—that the one seed leaf lies buried in the earth, as do their two seed leaves.

Fig. 98

The baby corn plant is very small. It does not fill the whole seed shell, but gets its nourishment from the food by which it is surrounded.

This picture shows you a seed or grain of corn cut in two (Fig. [98]). Of course, this is much larger than life. In the center you see the tiny plant. All about is the baby food.

The next picture (Fig. [99]) shows you the young corn plant.

Fig. 99

I want you to remember that this is the only plant we have seen with but one seed leaf. This one seed leaf never comes out of the seed shell. There are other plants of the same kind. All the grass plants have but one seed leaf, and the blue flag that grows in wet meadows, and all the lilies.

Fig. 100

Fig. 101

Only a few plants have more than two of these seed leaves. The pine trees are among these few. This picture (Fig. [100]) shows you a baby pine tree, still cradled in its seed, surrounded by baby food; and the next one (Fig. [101]) shows you the pine just starting out in the world, with its six seed leaves.

When you study the botany that is written for older people, you will find that plants are set apart in separate groups, according to the number of their seed leaves.

Strange though it may seem to you, plants with but one seed leaf have certain habits that you will not find in a plant with two seed leaves; and a plant with two seed leaves, long after these have passed away, will show by root and stem that it had more than one seed leaf.

In your schoolroom garden I should like you to grow side by side, first a plant with but one seed leaf, next a plant with two seed leaves, and lastly a plant with more than two.