All these plants, too, have single-leafed seeds. Plant some grains of corn. After they begin to sprout pull them up, one every day and watch them grow. The plant sprouts from one side of the grain, always. The first shoot looks like a blade of grass rolled from one side to another. The leaf and stalk veins lie side by side in long straight lines. The plants have no true bark, or rings of growth. Most of them live only one season. Their seeds are fertilized by pollen carried by the wind, as in palms and pines, and like them are borne on stalks or spikes. A head of wheat or an ear of corn is something like a pine cone, but the seeds are covered and protected. This class of plants gives us a great variety and quantity of grain foods, for men and animals and birds.
Last of all, Nature made plants with the two-leafed seeds, net-veined leaves, hard-wood stems that always show rings of growth, stiff bark, beautiful flowers and fruit. The very earliest of these still have wood only a little harder than pines and palms. And they bear their seeds on soft, feathery, or furry cones or spikes. These are the willows, alders and poplars with their tassel-like catkins. Far above these are the crown-bearers, or true flower-making plants. These are the orchard trees, rose bushes and strawberry vines, with their loose, gaily colored, fluttering petals. Their seeds are not only covered, they are often buried in fruit pulp, or hidden in pods and shells.
Very likely you think the crown-bearers are the highest of all plants. That is because you think of them as the most useful to human beings. But they are not more useful than many of the grasses and palms. By "highest" in plants and animals, is meant those that are most useful to themselves. It is the first business of every living thing to eat and grow and reproduce itself. Those that can do these things best, that can live and grow under the hardest conditions, and that can make and scatter the greatest number and hardiest seed, are the highest of all.
So, above the crown-bearers are the funnel flowering plants of the morning-glory and clover. And above them are the composite flowers that live, great numbers of them, packed and crowded into one flower head, like people in a city. These are the daisy, the sunflower, the chrysanthemum, the aster, the purple-headed thistle, the—guess! A little flower with a gold crown on his head—the common yellow dandelion!
If you don't believe it open a dandelion head in full flower. Split the green cup down one side and spread the head open. See
