The tree has a trunk or stem. It has leaves and it has roots. How were all these made?
Do you say that the apple tree grew? But what do you mean by growing? Something must have come into the apple seed to make it grow into a plant. And something must have come into the little green apple plant to make it grow into a tree.
What was it? Where did the plant get it? Cut into a green stem of the apple tree. See how the juice runs out!
The apple tree was made from this juice which we call sap. This sap is the blood of the plant. It makes the plant grow just as your blood makes you grow.
The sap came to the little apple plant all the time it was growing. But where did the plant get the sap?
The food of a plant lies all about its roots. The rain, or water from your watering pot, falls around the plant. It sinks into the ground. Then the water dissolves the earth just as it dissolves sugar.
The seed swells, and the brown seed coat bursts. Then a little root runs down into the earth. This root has hundreds of openings or mouths. The little openings are so small that our eyes can not see them.
The roots suck in the water from the ground. The earth that is dissolved in the water creeps up into the plant. This juice or sap makes the plant grow.
But the plant must have air as well as food. The sap can not turn into wood and bark and fruit until it has met the air. So the sap flows up into the leaves and meets the air.
Apple Blossoms.