Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

All country children know the milkweed plant, with its big bright leaves, and bunches of pink or red or purple flowers (Fig. [17]). And you know the puffy pods that later split open, letting out a mass of brown, silky-tailed seeds. There! I have given the answer to my own question; for if the plant’s fruit is the seed-holding part, then the milkweed’s fruit must be this pod stuffed full of beautiful, fairy-like seeds.

Fig. 17

Fig. 18

Then you know the burdock (Fig. [18]) which grows along the country road. But perhaps you do not know that the fruit of this is the prickly burr which hooks itself to your clothes on your way to school. This burr (Fig. [19]) is the case which holds the little seeds of the burdock, and so it must be its fruit.

Fig. 19

Fig. 20