As the number of your observations increases, and their character varies, you will see more and more the value of your notes recording them.

To the question of this exercise, Parts of Embryo? you give the answers, as before, from direct observation of the structure of the embryo itself. If some seeds give uncertain appearances, wait till growth has proceeded a little further before you decide about them. By premature judgments you may fill your note-book with errors which you will be compelled to

A DICOTYLED'ONOUS embryo has two cotyledons or seed-leaves (Fig. 260).

These are long, hard words, hard to pronounce, and hard to spell. But they are very necessary words in describing seeds. You can soon learn them.

Go over the seeds you have planted, and point out the dicotyledons. Show the two thick leaves. that were packed within the seed-coat when the seed ripened?

Are any of your seeds monocotyledonous? If so, which?

Figs. 259 and 260 were drawn from plants that had grown a little. When your seeds have also grown a little, compare them one after another with these pictures. Look at your young bean-plant. Find the first node above the cotyledons. How many leaves are growing there? how many at the first node of the corn-stem? how many in each of your growing seeds?

Observe whether the cotyledons in all cases rise into the light and air. Observe whether all cotyledons are shaped alike, and also whether they resemble the true leaves of the plant. Write carefully in your note-book the decision you have made in this exercise about each of your seeds. You will have occasion to refer to it as soon as your plants have put forth perfect full-grown leaves.*

* A word of caution may not here be amiss. There is danger that the sympathy of teachers with bright and interested pupils will lead them to tell in advance what children can find out for themselves by continued observation. The connection between number of cotyledons and venation is an instance of such temp

tation. This relation is an impressive one, and prominent in classification; but there is no need of haste in getting to it. Byand-by, when the leaves of his growing plants are well developed, by the aid of his note-book, the pupil might be put in the way of discovery, by asking him to make a list of his monocotyledons, and to give their venation in each case. Let him do the same with his dicotyledons. He will now see a perfect uniformity of relation in a few cases, and will be curious to know if it is everywhere constant. He will thus arrive at the induction by his own observation.

WOODY PLANTS.

EXERCISE LVIII.

Their Different Kinds.

WHAT do you name all the soft, fragile plants that die down to the ground in winter? Is there any name for all woody plants? Do you know of any woody plants that are not trees? If so, what do you call them? What is the difference between a young tree and a bush? Between a bush and a shrub ?

The following pictures and definitions are given

to help you in distinguishing one group of woody plants from another. After carefully looking them over, you should go through the streets and the fields, and whenever you see a woody plant, decide whether it is a tree, shrub, bush, under-shrub, or vine. If you take with you a companion who is interested in the same pursuit, it will be all the better.

Although trees vary much in size, height, and shape, and are often not nearly so tree-like as the one represented by Fig. 261, yet it is not easy to mistake them when full grown. If you are doubtful whether a particular plant is a tree or shrub, remember that, when a full-grown woody plant, less than fifteen feet high, is slender, and perhaps has several stems starting together at or near the ground, as seen in Fig. 262, it is called a SHRUB.

When a full-grown, woody plant, with several stems, is not more than five feet high, it is a BUSH.