"Then the spores are the same as seeds, after all"--you say. No; if they
were seeds, each would at once grow into a fern. This is what happens, as
far as I can explain it to you: from the spore springs a tiny leaf, which
roots itself, and it is from this green leaf that the young fern actually
grows, until it, as it were, begins life on its own account. The leaf dies
down, and the first frond of the new fern peeps above ground, closely
coiled up, as you have often seen, if you have been through the woods in
spring-time. The earliest forms of vegetable life, then, brought forth by
the earth at the word of God were the plants which have no seeds: botanists
have divided such plants into groups--the seaweeds and lichens, the mosses,
and the ferns.
Of the seaweeds, the lowest of all groups of plants, we were speaking some
time ago. The lichens, though such lowly plants, are very interesting, for
I have read that every form of lichen is composed of two distinct plants--a
seaweed and a fungus--so closely interwoven that you cannot tell where the
one ends and the other begins. The lichens range in colour from white to
yellow, red, green, brown--and some are as black as that rare black pansy
of which I told you. Each kind has its own peculiar way of growing, and
these hardy little plants can live where no other plant can--on the hard
black lava, on naked rocks, and even upon the highest snow-mountain.
Pages:
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143