"
Papa's eyes began to twinkle. "Many
of the dicotyledonous plants look alike at
the beginning," he said, with a little drawl
on the big word. That was to tease Margery,
because she always wanted to know
the big words she heard.
"What's `dicotyledonous'?" said
Margery, carefully.
"Wait till I come home to-night, dear,"
said her father, "and I'll tell you."
That evening Margery was waiting
eagerly for him, when her father finished
his supper. Together they went to the
garden, and father examined the seedlings
carefully. Then he pulled up a little
radish plant and a tiny beet.
"These little leaves," he said, "are not
the real leaves of the plant; they are only
little food-supply leaves, little pockets to
hold food for the plant to live on till it gets
strong enough to push up into the air. As
soon as the real leaves come out and begin
to draw food from the air, these little
substitutes wither up and fall off. These two
lie folded up in the little seed from the
beginning, and are full of plant food. They
don't have to be very special in shape, you
see, because they don't stay on the plant
after it is grown up."
"Then every plant looks like this at
first?" said Margery.
"No, dear, not every one; plants are
divided into two kinds: those which have
two food leaves, like these plants, and
those which have only one; these are called
dicotyledonous, and the ones which have
but one food leaf are monocotyledonous.
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