Fig. 129
If you have any such idea as that, you are quite wrong. Last summer, when the leaves were large and fresh, the little buds, that were not to unfold for nearly a year, began to form, growing somewhat larger as the weeks went by, and folding themselves tightly in the brown, leathery wrappings that were to keep them safe from the cold of winter.
I should like you to pull off these wrappings, and see how well the horse-chestnut tree defends from cold its baby leaves.
First you find about seven of these outside wrappings. The very outer ones are thick and brown, and covered with the sticky stuff that makes them proof against rain.
The next ones are brown and thick where their tips are exposed to the air, while the inner ones are green and delicate. But altogether they make a warm, snug covering for young leaves and flowers.
As for the baby leaves themselves, they are all done up in a furry stuff that keeps them from catching cold, even if a gust of wind or a few drops of rain should manage to make a way through the waterproof and almost air-tight wrappings.
So you see that the leaves and branches and young flowers of a plant or tree are looked after just as carefully as is the seed within the seed case, or the baby plant in its seed shell.
A HAPPY SURPRISE
