Harland Coultas

“ It is thus that Nature, like an affectionate mother, cares for the life of all her plant-children, and gently weans them, first gradually altering their organism so as to adapt it to a change of diet, and then by degrees withdrawing the sustenance afforded by the nursing leaves. ”

“ If we plant the seed of such an annual in a suitable soil when Spring and warm weather come it will begin to germinate, or its life-movements will re-commence. It first attracts the moisture from the soil to itself. This produces the softening and swelling of its outer covering, which is finally ruptured by the growth of the embryo in its interior, which sends downwards through the torn seed-cover a little rootlet, and upwards a young stem, to which are attached the first pair of leaves. ”

“ The currents of sap are all converging to those little seed-stalks, to those forming plant embryos contained in the seed, and the little store of starch is being prepared which is to support their infant-life. Nature carries on this process until the embryos, their food, and the wrappers, or seed-covers, are all perfected, the transformation of the ovule into the seed is then accomplished, and all the movements of life cease. ”

“ When we compare human life with plant life it is astonishing to what an extent their vital phenomena resemble each other. All the stages of human life, of infancy, youth, manhood, and old age, are well-defined in plant life. ”

“ We must add that the seed-vessel as it matures always assumes such an organisation as is calculated to effect the dispersion of the seed which has been thus brought to maturity. Sometimes the seed-vessel opens with a spring-like mechanism, as in the furze-bush and garden balsam, and the seeds are projected to a considerable distance from the plant. Who has not seen the wind performing its duties as a faithful servant of Nature, and transporting the seeds of the willow-herb and dandelion from their parent plants? ”

“ During the first stages of its life, our little annual attracts oxygen from the air; this enters the nursing leaves, and through its influence, the starch which they contain is converted into a soluble sugary gum called dextrine, which the water absorbed during germination conveys to the rootlets in the soil, and to the young leaves forming in the atmosphere. Thus nourished, both grow, and the young leaves speedily expand and take the form peculiar to the plant.
With the progress of growth, the nursing leaves also undergo a great change in their appearance. ”

“ The ovules having received the impregnating matter, the embryos or miniature-plants begin to form in them, and the ovules are then gradually transformed into seed. With the discharge of the pollen, the act of fertilisation is accomplished. The vital forces from this period begin to be enfeebled, and all the phenomena mark another well-marked change in plant life, a gradual subsiding of all energetic life movements, which culminates in death and disorganisation. ”

“ Hence the change of structure or departure from the ordinary type of leaf increases as we pass from the outside to the inside of the flower; for the vegetative forces are gradually enfeebled in the flower, and reduced to zero in the centre, where the metamorphosis of the leaf is at a maximum, or the leaf attains its highest stage of organic perfection. ”

“ They are thick and fleshy because they contain a store of starch, provisions elaborated by the parent plant which produced the seed, and whose last vital movements were expended in making this food for its offspring! On this store of starch, the infant plant, with its little root, and its stem bearing towards its summit the first true aerial leaves, is at first wholly parasitic, until it is sufficiently grown to attract from the earth and atmosphere a sufficiency of food for its support, and can do without the nursing leaves. ”

“ These leaves, which are thick and fleshy, form the great bulk of the seed, and are called by botanists cotyledons: they are, in reality, the nursing leaves of the young embryo. We call them nursing leaves because they perform a duty quite peculiar to themselves, and therefore different to the work done by the other leaves which subsequently appear above them. ”

“ Why do the flowers lose their beauty, the petals detach themselves and fall, the stamens experience the same degradation, the stigmas and styles of the pistils disappear equally with the other parts? It is because these parts have done the work which was assigned them by nature ”

“ Lifted above the ground and exposed to the light of the sun, they speedily expand and take a green leaf-like colour, becoming so much enlarged that they present quite a different appearance to that which they had when folded together and enveloped by the seed-skin. ”