How a Plant Grows With Seeds
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The Seed
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Plants can make seeds and from those seeds, new plants grow. This basic process of reproduction is one of the great stories that has shaped our planet.
What is a seed? It is a packet of food surrounding a tiny, embryo plant. At the beginning of the cycle, the seed is technically dead because no metabolic activity is going on. Because it is capable of germinating, it is not dead but dormant.
If you open a bean seed carefully, you can see the embryo plant inside. It has a tiny root, stem and a pair of tiny seed leaves with veins in them. All the rest of the bean is food for the new plant to use as it sprouts.
Germination
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Germination begins when temperatures are favorable and the seed is exposed to moisture. The embryo's root bursts through the seed coat into the soil. It anchors the seed in one place and begins to take in water and nutrients from the soil.
Then the embryo plant stem pushes its way towards the light, carrying the remains of the seed with it. While the roots in the ground are branching in several directions from the seedling plant's base, the stem pushes the seed out of the soil and straightens toward the light.
Only when free of the soil do the seed leaves, which were inside the seed, begin to expand and turn green.
The new plant's growing tip is visible between the seed leaves. Meanwhile, the remainder of the seed begins to shrivel as its food stores are used up.
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The Life Cycle
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As the seedling plant matures, it develops a more extensive root system, longer stems and more leaves, which are able to produce their own food from sunlight in a process called photosynthesis. Once the plant is producing its own food, it is an independent entity, able to produce new seeds of its own and start the cycle over again.
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