Celebration of Women Writers

Warner, Susan, 1819-1885

Daisy in the Field

Haywood, Eliza Fowler, 1693?-1756

The Fatal Secret: or, Constancy in Distress

Ogden, C. K. (Charles Kay), 1889-1957

Florence, Mary Sargant, 1857-

Militarism versus Feminism: An Enquiry and a Policy Demonstrating that Militarism involves the Subjection of Women

or LPP Part II;  Dansville, NY: F. A. Owen Publishing Company, c190

Chase, Annie


LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 1
I N S T R U C T O R  L I T E R A T U R E  S E R I E S
Little Plant People at Home
and What they are Doing There
Part II
BY
Annie Chase
F. A. OWEN PUBLISHING COMPANY
DANSVILLE, N.Y.
Copyright 1905, World’s Events Publishing Co.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE2
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 3
A PLANT WHO LIVES ON
THE HILLSIDE.
Little early Saxifrage lives up on
this dry hill close beside the big rock.
See how wise and cautious she is.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE4
She has made her leaves with very
few openings or pores in them so
they shall not lose much moisture.
Water is scarce up on this pasture
hill.
See how closely she lays her leaves
down upon the ground in a little
rosette.
She does this to keep the sun from
drinking up the moisture around her
roots.
Her roots are fine as the finest
hair ,   but how many of
them there are! She made
them threadlike because
there is so little soil here
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 5
on the rock for her to push them
through.
She made a great many, so as to
drink up all the moisture she can
find.
She has a strong root stalk just
there between the roots and the
leaves. So strong is this and those
tiny hair roots that, as they grow,
they often split great rocks in pieces!
The spring rains  and melt ing
snows helped this little dweller on
the rock.
She comes up in spring with a
bud snuggled down in the middle of
her leaf rosette.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE6
She opens her blossoms close down
to the ground. Then as the winds
grow kinder, she pushes up the whole
cluster on a pretty, furry stem.
This fur on the stem is put there
to help keep the stem moist, and to
keep these ants here on the rock
from crawling up and carrying off
her honey.
She wishes to keep her honey for
the bees, because the bees will help
her make seeds; the ants will not.
Spring Everlasting is another little
plant who loves the dry, old pasture.
She has furry thick leaves and the
little blossoms come up, their heads
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 7
nestled into little furry hoods to keep
out the cold spring winds.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE8
A PLANT WHO LIVES IN
THE WOOD.
Little Anemone loves to live in the
wood.
She loves the long cool shadows.
She loves the sheltering trees
over her head.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 9
She loves the mossy carpet
sprinkled with dried leaves at her feet.
She loves the quiet and the mois-
ture of that pool not far away between
the maples.
Anemone can have thin delicate
leaves because her home is so moist
and so sheltered from rude winds.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE10
She can have tender roots too, be-
cause the soil beneath her is light
and soft.
If you pick the Anemones they
will droop in your hand before you
reach home.
The dear little things lose the
moisture out of their leaf and stem
cells.
When the little cells which make
up the whole plant are full of the
water which comes up through the
roots, the cells swell out plump and
round making the plant firm and
upright.
When the water goes out of the
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 11
cells their walls fall in and make the
whole plant limp.
A PLANT WHICH WEARS
A BONNET.
The very first plant to come up in
the spring is the Skunk Cabbage.
How this  odd plant  does love
water! He grows in the bog beside
the frog pond so he can drink just as
much as he likes.
The blossom comes up first, an
odd little knob with a big striped
poke bonnet around it.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE12
Is the bonnet  to keep out the cold?
How different are his big juicy
leaves and stems from those of the
plants which grow on the hillside!
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 13
A PLANT IN THE
MEADOW
[See Frontispiece]
Down by the brook are the golden
cowslip blossoms.  Their roots are
in the water; their leaves and blooms
are in the new meadow grasses.
Here is a secret: Plant leaves have
little holes in them as you have
learned.  The holes are to let out
and take in moisture and air.
On either side of everyone of these
little pores or holes are little lips
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE14
which open when the plant wishes
to let out moisture, and  which close
when it wishes to keep the moisture
in.
You wil l  f ind the brook and
meadow plants have ever so many of
these pores and that they keep them
open much of the time.
The hillside plants do not have so
many and they keep them nearly
closed except in too wet weather.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 15
THE
DANDELION.
There is always something new to
learn of Dandelion though we study
her year after year.
Dandelion can make her home any-
where, by the dusty wayside, down
in the wet meadow, on the
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE16
pasture hill, in the orchard, or by
our door stone.
When she lives in wet places she
has thin leaves with many pores.
When she lives in dry places she
has thick tough leaves with fewer
and closed pores.
When she lives on the hillside she
has short stems and her blooms are
close down among the mosses.
When she lives in the meadow
where the grasses are tall she makes
long, long stems for her blooms and
for her leaves that she may catch her
share of sunbeams and breezes.
When the weather is damp she
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 17
closes her blossoms up tight so that
no harm can come to her precious
golden dust.
On such days Bee finds her doors
all locked and goes away disap-
pointed.
Do you know why she notches her
leaves in that odd way she has? It
is so the sunbeams can fall on every
leaf.
Do you know why dandelion’s
stem will curl when you split it?
Because the outside skin of the
stem “pulls” one way and the inside
skin pulls another way.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE18
Rhubarb stem coverings will be-
have in the same way.
These stem coverings are like the leaf
coverings — waterproof.
ANOTHER PLANT IN
THE WOOD.
Close  by  Anemone
grows  the  False  So lo -
m o n ’ s  S e a l .  W h a t  a
tender,  bright green she
wears in her leaves!
See  her  l eaves  are
shaped and curved just
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 19
right to catch the sunbeams as they
peep down to her between the tree
boughs!
How pointed her leaf is! It needs
that trowel point to help it pry up
through the dead leaves.
Here are some of her leaves which
have come up through holes in the
dead oak and beech leaves.
We will take off your chains, little
leaves, and set you free.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE20
JACK-IN-THE-PULPIT
Here is dear old Jack again.
Have you heard him preach?
Did you ever watch him make
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 21
berries, pretty bright red ones, to put
in the con-tri-bu-tion box?
You must let him grow in his
shady wood home all summer if you
wish to have the fun of watching
him.
MAKING COLORS.
One of the tasks which the plants
must do every year is to make color
for their blossoms.
How can they do it?
We can find out but little about
this secret of the flowers. The color
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE22
of the petals depends upon the sort
of matter dissolved and taken from
the soil into the sap of the plant.
In the tiny cells which make up a
violet is sap of a purplish color, and,
floating in this sap are tiny yellowish
grains.
Upon the manner in which these
two are mixed together in the cells,
 depends the color of the violet’s petals.
Beth found a poor little purple
meadow violet which had been
brought from its home and carelessly
dropped in the street.
One petal had been cruelly tram-
pled under foot and was quite white;
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 23
the purple sap had all been crushed
out of it.
But why and how do the plants
growing on the same sandy hillside
always gather their own and no other
color from the soil?
The wild rose draws pink, the
sheep laurel crimson, the rock rose
yellow, the violet blue or purple  or
white, from the same spot.
We do not know why this is so
nor can we find out exactly.   It is
one of the plant children’s secrets.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE24
THE VIOLETS
Violets of the hills, the plains, the
meadows, the valleys, the mountains,
the woodlands, and every violet has
a color of its own.
T h e  e a r l y  b l u e
violet  smil ing up
from the pasture
and roadside where
it gathers in great
numbers like thou-
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 25
sands of gay little girls at a picnic,
is blue purple.
It flower stems are shorter than
its leaves.
The marsh violet, which
you often f ind by the
brook in the meadow, is
a  pa le  l i lac  s t reaked
with purple veins.
The primrose leaved
violet has white petals
with purple veins.
The lance leaved violet of meadow
and streams has white petals.
The Canada violet is a pale pur-
plish white.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE26
Bird’s foot violet
comes nearest  to
wear ing  the  r ea l
sky  b lue .  I t  i s
t inged  w i th  so f t
purp le  and  wears
a b i t  o f  br ight  ye l -
low which is  very
becoming .
W h e n  y o u  f o l -
l ow  the  wood  path
through some damp shaded spot on
the edge of a bog or to where it leads
out to the meadow lands, you will
find the sweet scented white violet,
which is all white except for a few
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 27
purple veins near the center.
The hairy leaved yellow violet has
yellow violet and yellow petals.
The Prairie Violet is pale blue and
its leaves are much like those of the
Bird’s foot violet.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE28
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 29
BATTERIES IN BLOSSOMS.
High Laurel has ways so droll they
must make the bees laugh.
Every Laurel bloom has nine or ten
stamens.
On the end of each stamen is hung
a tiny purse full of gold dust.
Each one of these
purses is tucked into a
w e e  p o c k e t .  E a c h
p o c k e t  i s  l i n e d  w i t h
pink.
You can see the purses on the in-
side of the blossom.
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE30
You  can  see
the pouch - like
pocket from the
outs ide  o f  the
blossom.
These purses are thus tucked away
to keep them safe from insect robbers.
Lest these pockets should not be
safe enough for the purses, Laurel
covers her blossoms with sticky
gum.
If a robber ant tries to clamber
boldly over this he is caught and
held fast.
“Keep away, ant  robbers, keep
away! You will only carry the gold
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE 31
dust down to the ground  where it
will be wasted.”
“Come, bees, come; you will help
to carry the precious gold dust from
one bloom to another and so help us
make seeds.  Come, do come; here
is some sweet, sweet nectar for you.”
Laurel puts the sweet nectar on
the end of a stem (the pistil) in the
middle of the flower, and thrusts this
stem far out where bee can reach it.
Around the base of the stem Lau-
rel draws a little pink circle, so that
bee can easily find the nectar.
Bee soon comes; he alights on the
pink circle, then up flies every little
LITTLE PLANT PEOPLE32
This is a reproduction of a booklet
 in the possession of
Elizabeth Allen.
stamen, out flies every little purse
from every little pocket, and away
flies the gold dust all over Bee’s back
and thighs and wings and legs.
“Why! why! ha! ha!” laugh the
sunbeams dancing on the river in
their glee; “do see those flowers pelt
that clumsy bee with pollen bullets!”
Bee does not mind the pat pat of
such tiny soft bullets but keeps on
gathering sweets until he has visited
every flower and emptied every
purse.
2002
An Elfin Press e-reprint


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