Part 31

The children talked the rest of the afternoon about these curious things. They found where a scarlet runner had traveled several feet through the grass to reach a peach-tree, and had climbed far up into its branches. Then Davy happened to remember the story about the vines which the Chief Gardener had told them during the winter, and told it all over to little Prue--how the honeysuckle had laughed at the scarlet runner and the morning-glory, and had been punished by being made to twine to the left, away from the sun, instead of to the right, toward it, like the morning-glory and the bean. So the happy summer day passed, and in the cool of the evening big Prue came out to watch the sun go down, and in the pleasant arbor they all had tea together.

III

THERE ARE PLANTS WHICH DO NOT BLOOM

BUT during the last two weeks of August the Chief Gardener and big Prue and little Prue and Davy all went to the seashore, which was not far away. They lived in a pretty cottage near the beach, and there were meadows behind that stretched away to the blue hills. Davy and Prue loved the sea, with all its curious shells and star-fishes and other wonderful creatures. They loved the white sand, where they found these things, and where the great waves billowed and broke over them when they bathed on hot afternoons. They loved the meadows, too, for here there were birds building in the grass, and flowers unlike any in their gardens, and little streams of clear water that went singing to the sea.

It was when they came from the meadow one afternoon, that they hurried to the Chief Gardener with the little basket which they always carried.

"We have found some things," said Davy, "and want you to look at them."

The Chief Gardener took the basket. On top were some mushrooms--two kinds. One had whity-brown tops, and was pink or brown or almost black underneath, while the other had yellow tops with white spots on them, and was very pale underneath. The Chief Gardener looked sharply at the children when he saw these yellow mushrooms.

"Go and wash your hands, quickly," he said, "and I hope neither of you have put your hands to your mouth since you touched these."

"I haven't," said Davy, "and I picked the yellow ones."

"They are deadly poison," said the Chief Gardener, "they are called the Amanita, and even to touch the tongue with your fingers after handling them might make you very ill. The others are meadow mushrooms and harmless. But even they could not be eaten after being in the basket with the Amanitas."

The children ran to wash their hands, and were presently back to ask questions. Meantime the Chief Gardener had found a lot of beautiful moss and ferns in the bottom of the basket, and some lichens, which the children had gathered from a rocky cliff not far away.

"Papa, aren't mushrooms toad-stools, and don't they build them to sit on, in pleasant weather, and to get under, when it rains?"

This was little Prue, and she was quite excited.

"I think they are some kind of plants," said Davy, "but I don't see where the flowers are, or how they make seeds."

"How about the ferns?" asked the Chief Gardener. "Did you find any flowers on the ferns?"

"No, but we found seeds."

Davy turned one of the fern leaves over, and, sure enough, there were a lot of little brown seeds under the ends of some of the leaflets. Then the Chief Gardener turned over one of the meadow mushrooms, and divided the little layers beneath with the tip of his pencil.

"That is where the mushroom keeps its seeds, too," he said. "We do not call them seeds, though, but spores. Fern seeds are called spores, also."

"But toads do sit under mushrooms, don't they?" insisted little Prue.

"Why, yes, I suppose a great many toads have done that, but they are really plants, as Davy says."

Davy had become thoughtful.

"Are they Exogens?" he asked, "or Endogens? I should think the mushrooms might be Endogens from their stems, and the fern Exogens from their leaves."

"Well, Davy, that is very well said, but they are really neither one. They belong to a great class of their own. Exogens and Endogens are only the two kinds of flowering plants. These mushrooms and ferns and mosses and lichens all belong to the flowerless plants, and are called Crip-tog-a-mous--a very long word, which I do not expect you to remember. The divisions of flowerless plants are too hard a study for little folks, but the plants are all very interesting, and we can gather them, and see how they grow. In fact, I think we will have to call our meadow and our beach your August garden."

"But there isn't anything on the beach," said Prue.

"How about all that seaweed you were gathering yesterday?"

"But does that really grow like our plants on the shore?" asked Davy.

"Very much the same, and it belongs to the flowerless class, too, along with the mosses and lichens and ferns and mushrooms. It has spores instead of seeds, and is really a sort of a moss of the sea."

"Oh, call us not weeds, we are flowers of the sea, For lovely and bright and fresh-tinted are we,"