| PART I.—FRUITS AND SEEDS | |
| PAGE | |
| In the Orchard | [9] |
| The Story of the Bee | [16] |
| The Apple’s Treasures | [19] |
| What a Plant lives for | [21] |
| The World without Plants | [24] |
| How the Apple shields its Young | [27] |
| Some Cousins of the Apple | [31] |
| Uneatable Fruits | [34] |
| More Cousins of the Apple | [36] |
| Still more Cousins | [39] |
| In the Woods | [41] |
| Why Seeds travel | [50] |
| Some Little Tramps | [52] |
| Seed Sailboats | [56] |
| Winged Seeds | [61] |
| Shooting Seeds | [63] |
| The Chestnut and Other Seeds | [67] |
| Some Strange Stories | [69] |
| PART II.—YOUNG PLANTS | |
| How the Baby Plant lives | [75] |
| A Schoolroom Garden | [79] |
| A Schoolroom Garden (Concluded) | [85] |
| Seeds as Food | [89] |
| An Impatient Plant Baby | [91] |
| A Humpbacked Plant Baby | [94] |
| PART III.—ROOTS AND STEMS | |
| Root Hairs | [99] |
| Roots and Underground Stems | [102] |
| Above-ground Roots | [106] |
| What Few Children know | [112] |
| Plants that cannot stand alone | [114] |
| Some Habits of Stems | [117] |
| Stems and Seed Leaves | [119] |
| “Well done, Little Stem” | [122] |
| PART IV.—BUDS | |
| Buds in Winter | [125] |
| A Happy Surprise | [127] |
| Some Astonishing Buds | [129] |
| PART V.—LEAVES | |
| How to look at a Leaf | [135] |
| The most Wonderful Thing in the World | [138] |
| How a Plant is built | [142] |
| How a Plant’s Food is cooked | [143] |
| A Steep Climb | [147] |
| How a Plant perspires | [148] |
| How a Plant stores its Food | [149] |
| Leaf Green and Sunbeam | [151] |
| Plant or Animal? | [154] |
| How we are helped by Leaf Green and Sunbeam | [156] |
| How a Plant breathes | [158] |
| The Diligent Tree | [160] |
| Leaves and Roots | [162] |
| Leaf Veins | [165] |
| Leaf Shapes | [167] |
| Hairy Leaves | [170] |
| Woolly and “Dusty” Leaves | [172] |
| Prickles and Poison | [174] |
| Some Cruel Traps | [176] |
| More Cruel Traps | [181] |
| The Fall of the Leaf | [184] |
| PART VI.—FLOWERS | |
| The Building Plan of the Cherry Blossom | [187] |
| Lilies | [191] |
| About Stamens | [193] |
| Flower Dust, or Pollen | [196] |
| About Pistils | [197] |
| The First Arrival | [202] |
| Pussy Willows | [205] |
| Alders and Birches | [207] |
| The Great Trees | [209] |
| The Unseen Visitor | [211] |
| Plant Packages | [214] |
| Underground Storehouses | [216] |
| Different Building Plans | [217] |
| A Celebrated Family | [222] |
| Clever Customs | [225] |
| Flowers that turn Night into Day | [228] |
| Horrid Habits | [230] |
| The Story of the Strawberry | [232] |
| A Cousin of the Strawberry | [235] |
| Another Cousin | [238] |
| Pea Blossoms and Peas | [240] |
| The Clover’s Trick | [243] |
| More Tricks | [244] |
| An Old Friend | [247] |
| The Largest Plant Family in the World | [248] |
| Robin’s Plantain, Golden-rod, and Aster | [251] |
| The Last of the Flowers | [254] |
| PART VII.—LEARNING TO SEE | |
| A Bad Habit | [257] |
| A Country Road | [261] |
| A Holiday Lesson | [264] |
PLANTS AND THEIR CHILDREN
Part I—Fruits and Seeds
IN THE ORCHARD
Is there a nicer place in which to play than an old apple orchard? Once under those favorite trees whose branches sweep the ground, you are quite shut off from the great, troublesome, outside world. And how happy and safe you feel in that green world of your own!—a world just made for children, a world of grass and leaves and birds and flowers, where lessons and grown-up people alike have no part.
In the lightly swinging branches you find prancing horses, and on many a mad ride they carry you. The larger ones are steep paths leading up mountain sides. Great chasms yawn beneath you. Here only the daring, the cool-headed, may hope to be successful and reach the highest points without danger to their bones.
Out here the girls bring their dolls, and play house. Nothing can make a more interesting or a more surprising house than an apple tree, its rooms are so many and of such curious shapes. Then, too, the seats in these rooms are far more comfortable than the chairs used by ordinary people in everyday houses. The doings of the Robin family are overlooked by its windows. One is amazed to see how many fat worms Mother Robin manages to pop down the yawning baby throats, and wonders how baby robins ever live to grow up.