Part 6

In other places there are also very big trees. In New Jersey I once saw a large, hollow tree, in which a goat lived. He was a big goat. He jumped about and slept inside the tree. When the children called him he came out to draw their cart. In another hollow tree I saw a very nice play-house.

While some plants are so large, others are very small. There is a little pond weed, which, root and all, is not so big as a grain of rice. Other plants are as small as pin heads. Others are so small that you cannot see them without a microscope.

Plants differ as much in age as in size. Some grow and die in a few hours, or a day. Others live only a year. Some trees are said to live three thousand years.

There are plants that have flowers, and plants that never have any flowers. There are plants that grow from the outside in, other plants grow from the inside out. If you like plants, and some day study Botany, you will find out about all these things.

FOOTNOTES:

See Nature Reader, No. 2, on these subjects.

That which we call mould upon such substances is a form of vegetable life.

The oldest and largest known tree is a chestnut at the foot of Mount Etna. The trunk is 212 feet in girth.

Gray’s “How Plants Grow,” pp. 41, 42, will here aid the teacher.

LESSON III.

A LOOK AT A PLANT.

Plants are divided into two great classes. One class contains all plants with flowers. The other class contains plants that have no flowers. The plants with flowers are the ones which you like best. They are of the most interest to you. Besides this, they are the easiest to learn about.

A piece of moss is a flowerless plant. What you call a “simple bit of moss,” would be harder to learn about than a whole garden full of lilies and roses.

The plants with flowers are the most perfect plants. They are also the most beautiful, and the most useful. A perfect plant has six parts for you to notice: 1, the root; 2, the stem; 3, leaves; 4, blossoms (the blossom is made of several parts); 5, a bag or box for seeds; 6, seeds.

Here are all those parts shown in our picture of a pea-vine. You see our pea-vine has something else. It has little curly things with which to climb. They are its hands for taking hold of objects. They are leaves, buds, or twigs, that have changed. They are now tendrils. They grew slim, and long, and curly, as the plant had need of them for climbing.

Some plants do not have all these parts. Some have no stems. Have you not found little plants without stems? The leaves and flowers sit close upon the earth. Some plants have no leaves.

Sometimes parts of the flower are gone. Instead of a fine flower there may be only a little scale, with a bunch of small threads lying upon it.

Now let us take a little look at the parts of a perfect plant. We just want to see the great variety in them. We will learn also of what use they are to the plant.

Of what use are roots? The root is the plant’s anchor to hold it firm in its place. The root is the plant’s pantry or cellar, where much of its food is stored up. The root is the plant’s mouth. Many of the mouths of the plant are on the ends of the little fibres that grow from the main part of the root. Get some plant roots and look at the fringe-like, slender fibres. These little mouths under ground are eating, eating, eating, all the time. They eat all kinds of minerals held in water in the earth.

Roots last one, two, or many years. Where the root lasts one year, the plant is soft and juicy. Where the root lasts over one year, the plant is often more or less hard and woody.

Roots differ much in shape. Pull up some grass. That has roots like a bunch of coarse threads. When I was a child I was much pleased to learn that it was such slim, thread-like roots that held together the earth of the Holland coast, so the sea could not wash it away.

Get a carrot from the garden or market. What a long wedge-like root it has. The radish is a slimmer root. The beet has the same general shape, but is thicker. The turnip is round. The dahlia has rough, knobby roots of many shapes.

But, in fact, all these thick parts which we call roots are not true roots. The real true roots are the little fibres with mouths at the ends. These thick, round, wedge-shaped, or knobby, parts, are stems, or parts of stems, that grow under ground.

Now and then, if a tree or plant is set in the earth, top down, the roots will put out leaves and buds. This shows that they are underground stems, or branches.

“What kind of a root is a potato?” asks Bobby. A potato is not a root. It is a thick underground stem. The real potato roots are the little fibres.

“What kind of root is an onion?” says Mary. An onion is not a root, it is a bud or bulb. The scales are leaves that have grown white and thick. The real roots of the onion are the fibres that hang in a bunch under the round part.

Roots are of many colors. They are brown, white, red, yellow, pink, orange.

Roots of many plants are useful to men for food. They also have stored up in them the food on which the plant lives.