Parent plant

“ This nourishment was supplied by the mother plant to the ovule and seed, and thence taken into the embryo during its growth. Such embryos, filling the whole seed, are comparatively large and strong, and vigorous in germination in proportion to the amount of their growth while connected with the parent plant. ”

“ When large numbers of plants are desired, as in commercial nurseries, it is often necessary to cut back the parent plant to the ground, or very nearly so, for the purpose of securing many shoots fit for layering. A plant which is cut back in the spring will produce shoots fit for layering the following spring; or some species will produce them in abundance the same year if layers of green or immature wood are desired. ”

“ In our familiar wild flowers, for instance, the young plant, at an early stage of its existence, while it is still minute, becomes covered with a coat often of very resistant qualities, and is then cast loose by the parent in the form of seed, mostly in great numbers, to achieve what travels it can before it takes root and settles down, like its parent before it, to a humdrum existence. ”

“ Every lot of seeds is to be sown in a separate pan, and care must be taken to sow such quantities the three to four hundred seedlings will arise from each. As soon as they display their cotyledons, they are counted, and the number is the criterion of the parent-plant. Only parent-plants with the highest percentages are selected, and out of [418] their seedlings some fifty or a hundred of the best ones are chosen to furnish the seeds for the next generation. ”

“ That they are at least capable of becoming independent plants, is shown by an experiment frequently successful when the necessary care is taken, namely the breaking off and sowing of the buds of our forest trees. The well-known garden operations of grafting and budding are also examples of this, and layering only differs from the sowing of the buds, in that the buds on the layers are allowed to acquire a certain degree of maturity before they are separated from the parent plant. ”

“ By the parent it is provided with a protective wrapping, the seed coat, and beneath this the little embryo swells until it reaches a certain size, when as a ripe seed it severs its connection with the maternal organism. It is important to realise that the seed of a plant is not a sexual cell but a young individual which, except for the coat that it wears, belongs entirely to the next generation. It is with annual plants in some respects as with many butterflies. ”

“ The Families, or Genera, are characterized by the analogy of all the parts of the flower or fructification. The Species are distinguished by the foliage of the plant; and the Varieties by any accidental circumstance of colour, taste, or odour; the seeds of these do not always produce plants similar to the parent; as in our numerous fruit-trees and garden flowers; which are propagated by grafts or layers.
The first eleven Classes include the plants, in whose flowers both the sexes reside; and in which the Males or Stamens are neither united, nor unequal in height when at maturity ”

“ The general principle I think seems to be, a disposition in plants to retain under different circumstances their own former habits, and a disposition in seeds to acquire the habits of their parent plants. ”

“ Each of these branches may do what every other branch does—produce leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds. It is not so with the higher animals, for in them each part may do something which some other part cannot do: if the part is a leg, it runs; if an ear, it hears. Each part serves the whole animal; and it cannot reproduce the animal. But in the plant, each branch lives for itself: it grows on the parent stock; or, if it is removed, it may grow in the soil. And if it grow in the soil, it is relieved of competition with other branches and grows bigger: it makes what we call a plant.
Fig. ”

“ As the best marked varieties of a wild species occur on the confines of the area which it inhabits, so the best marked varieties of a cultivated plant, are those last produced by the gardener. Cabbages, for example, wall fruit, and cerealia, show no disposition, when neglected, to assume the characters of the wild states of these plants. Hence the difficulty of determining what are the true parent species of most of our cultivated plants. ”

“ Just as that small portion of nourishing matter which is deposited in the seed feeds the embryo when it germinates, so the much larger portion deposited in the tuber nourishes its buds, or eyes, when they likewise grow, the next spring, into new plants. And the great supply enables them to shoot with a greater vigor at the beginning, and to produce a greater amount of vegetation than the seedling plant could do in the same space of time ”

“ The water plants are very interesting in that the pollen is just light enough to float on the exact level of the mother part of the flower, otherwise fertilization could never take place, and there would be no more lovely lilies. Long throated blossoms are fertilized by their attraction for certain moths or humming birds who have long tongues. Mother Nature is exceedingly careful to reproduce her children, and in every conceivable way she sees to it that her plant-seeds are fertilized and distributed. ”

“ If the ground in old-established botanic gardens be dug much deeper than ordinary, it frequently happens that species which have been long lost are recovered, from their seeds being latent in the soil, as I have been assured by Mr. Fairbairn of Chelsea garden, and others.
The integuments of the seed, having fulfilled their destined office of protection, burst and decay. The young root is the first part of the infant plant that comes forth, and by an unerring law of Nature it is sent downwards, to seek out nourishment as well as to fix the plant to the ground. ”

“ It is, in fact, not surprising that plants vary, but that the force of heredity will hold them into such recognizable categories that the red maple, or white ash, or blue cohosh are, with thousands of other species, after all fairly definite designations without which talking and writing about plants would be all but impossible. Some of our most beautiful garden plants have arisen either as the result of natural crossing, or crosses deliberately made by the plant breeder. ”

“ As this morning-glory is a vine which lives at many of your doorsteps, I hope you will not fail to collect its seeds, and look at their baby plants. When these are very young, still surrounded by a quantity of baby food, you will not be able to make them out unless you carry them to your teacher and borrow her glass; but when the seed is ripe, and the little plant has eaten away most of the surrounding food, it grows so big that you can see it quite plainly with your own eyes. ”

“ God gives the seed a body "as it hath pleased Him, and to every seed its own body."
It is true that what are called "varieties" can be produced among cultivated plants, as among birds and animals, by change of food and climate, and by care and training. The same plant will soon look very different if taken from a dry, sunny spot, and placed in a damp, shady corner. I have heard that if plants are moved from their home on the seashore, and placed in a dry, hot place, their thick, fleshy leaves will in time quite change their character, becoming thin and hairy. ”

“ By fertilizing white flowers with pollen from red ones we can almost always get seeds that will develop into plants bearing flowers that are not white. What is true of color is true of other characteristics of the plant, such, for instance, as size and shape of leaves, habit of growth, size, shape, and quality of fruit, etc. Thus by careful cross-fertilization, we are able to produce not only beautiful and new blossoms, but also many delicious new fruits. ”

“ Let us fix our attention on a single plant. It has a certain amount of root pasturage and space in which to grow. Since it is not permitted to produce an indefinite number of young plants, it begins to develop itself. The soil is rich, the roots are busy, and there must be an outlet. The original plant cannot form others, and therefore begins to produce fruit-crowns for the coming year. All the sap, all the increasing power of root and foliage, are directed to preparation for fruit. ”

“ The latter, when duly fertilized by being brought into contact with the "pollen" of the stamens, become "seeds," and are capable of growing up, when planted, into new plants. Now, the botanist will inform us that it is a matter of common experience to find some individual plants of a species with well-developed petals or blossoms, and other individuals of the same species with petals in a rudimentary condition, thus proving that the production of imperfect parts in flowers occurs as an ordinary event under our own eyes, and under the common conditions of plant-life. ”

“ The Seed Plants, then, achieved their wonderful abundance and variety owing to the highly stimulating conditions offered by a terrestrial existence; we must assign to all the existing types a long terrestrial ancestry. How, then, about the water plants whose leaves and flowers so decorate our lakes? There seems no doubt [13] that they are species which have left the land to resume the aquatic habits of their remote ancestors. With few exceptions they retain the aerial mode of pollination which is the pride of the specialized land plants. ”

“ V. Genus; VI. Species.
To illustrate: The white pine belongs to the highest great division (sub-kingdom) of the plant kingdom. The plants of this division all produce seeds, and hence are called “spermaphytes” (“seed plants”) . They may be divided into two groups (classes) , distinguished by certain peculiarities in the flowers and seeds. These are named respectively “gymnosperms” and “angiosperms,” and to the first our plant belongs. The gymnosperms may be further divided into several subordinate groups (orders) , one of which, the conifers, or cone-bearing evergreens, includes our plant. ”

“ At age seven or eight the foundation for sex-instruction should be laid by information concerning plant production; that the pollen dust of the father plant becomes attached to the legs of the honey-seeking bee and is transferred to the mother plant, where it fertilizes the seed from which a baby plant grows. The function of the wind, also, in effecting the conjunction of pollen with the ovule of the stigma should be explained; and how the pollen or male principle fertilizes and gives life to the female ovule, making seed from which a new plant is born. ”

“ If plants have no flowers, you will ask, how can the new baby plants grow? Can there be seed babies without flowers?
No, flowerless plants do not bear seeds, but they do have plant babies, otherwise we would not have ferns, mushrooms, and many other important plants.
The plant babies of flowerless plants come from spores, not seeds. ”

“ Fruit trees must be pruned. If a tree in an open field is allowed to go unpruned, the crown soon becomes a dense mass of twigs and interlacing branches. Such a tree may produce as large a number of apples as a well-pruned, open-headed tree, but will there be the same percentage of merchantable fruit? The chief effort of every plant under natural conditions is expended in ensuring its own reproduction. This is chiefly effected by means of seeds. A small apple may contain [418] as many seeds as a large one and even more. ”

“ It is a common notion that trees grown from suckers sprout or sucker worse than those grown from seeds. Layers are also extensively employed for the propagation of the plum. Strong stools (page 35) are grown, and the long and strong shoots are covered in spring throughout their length—the tips only being exposed—and every bud will produce a plant. Strong shoots of vigorous sorts will give plants strong enough the first fall to be removed into nursery rows. ”

“ When the process of germination has terminated, if the young plant is brought under the yellow glass, it grows most healthfully, and forms an abundance of wood, the leaves having an unusually dark green colour, from the formation of a large quantity of chlorophylle. Plants do not, however, produce flowers with readiness under this medium ”

“ Why, all night long they have been sucking in water through tiny openings in the seed shell; and this [Pg 77] water has so refreshed them, and so filled the wrinkled coats and swelled them out, that they look almost ready to burst.
So you see, do you not, how the water manages to get inside the seed so as to give the baby plant a drink?
Usually it is rather late in the year when seeds fall to the earth. During the winter the baby plant does not do any drinking ”

“ The more efficient protection of the ovules, the germs which, after fertilisation, become the seeds, the extraordinary variety in the floral mechanisms for assisting cross-pollination, the arrangements for nursing the embryo, and the structural features of the wood in relation both to rapid transport of water and to the storage of food, are factors which have probably contributed to the success of the Angiosperms. ”

“ The nursery is made and carefully planted with seed on the first piece of ground that is cleared, so that by the time the remainder of the garden is ready to be planted out the seed has developed into a small plant, with strength enough to stand being transplanted. ”

“ In your schoolroom garden I should like you to grow side by side, first a plant with but one seed leaf, next a plant with two seed leaves, and lastly a plant with more than two.
SEEDS AS FOOD I want you to think for yourselves why it is fortunate for us human beings that many plants store away in their seeds so much baby food. ”

“ VI) that plants propagate by means of seeds. They also propagate by means of bud parts,—as rootstocks (rhizomes) , roots, runners, layers, bulbs. The pupil should determine how any plant in which he is interested naturally propagates itself (or spreads its kind) . Determine this for raspberry, blackberry, strawberry, June-grass or other grass, nut-grass, water-lily, May apple or mandrake, burdock, Irish potato, sweet potato, buckwheat, cotton, pea, corn, sugar-cane, wheat, rice.
Plants may be artificially propagated by similar means, as by layers, cuttings, and grafts. ”