Learning About Flowers (1957)

e [Applause] [Music] this is a morning glory the flowers grow on Long Vines morning glories are of many colors there are white ones and red ones with white edges and there are blue ones do you know how the Morning Glory gets its name it is because its flowers open in the morning when the sun first begins to shine on them this is how the flower Bud of the Morning Glory looks before the Sun is up and later after you have eaten breakfast the bud may look like this and still later in the morning it will look like this while you were away the flower opened and that is why it is called a morning glory it would be fun to watch a morning glory Bud while it opens to do this you would have to wait for perhaps 2 hours so suppose we use the magic of moving pictures to speed things up now you can see in a few seconds something that actually takes about 2 hours to happen here is the bud of another Morning Glory it too is opening in the Rays of the Bright Morning Sun now the flower is fully opened it will Bloom until about noon and then will begin to wither would you like to watch another kind of flower opening perhaps a dandelion or this common field weed the goats beard a goats beard Bud needs only about 15 minutes to open but let's hurry it along again with our moving picture magic goats beard flowers open so fast you can watch them unfold why don't you try watching One someday these tulips are among the early earliest flowers of spring here is one opening as it is warmed by the Sun and here is the tulip flower fully opened do you know that willows are flowers too see how furry they are as they open about a week later they look like this each one is really a a cluster of many tiny flowers you can put some willows in water and watch the buds open or you may watch each day as they open on the branches Outdoors trees have flowers too this is an apple tree in bloom here are some of the Apple buds opening first the scales on the outside of the bud separate and fall off then the leaves appear a few days later the flower buds come out so we know now that there are both leaves and flowers in the buds of some plants here is a woodland with some flowering dogwood trees have you ever looked closely at dogwood flowers they look like this maybe you would like to watch some of the buds open most people think this is one flower with four petals but let us see how dogwood flower buds open and find the real flowers first the bud swells the parts get bigger and bigger now they're getting white and you can see that they aren't flower petals at all they're just the bud scales that grew bigger and turned white here are the real flower buds in the center now they're opening dogwood flowers open rapidly sometimes one of them will open in 5 minutes did you ever wonder what good flowers do of course you know that many people raise them because they're pretty perhaps you flowers at your home perhaps you know that some kinds of insects get their food from flowers bees not only get their food from flowers in summer but they also make honey from flowers and stored it in their hives for winter but what do flowers do for the plants if we have the camera watch some flowers for several days we can see what they do here are some flowers of a bean plant notice how the Petals of this flower soon wither but you can see what happens to the part of the flower that is left now watch it grow can you see now what it's going to be that's right a bean pot and what has grown inside the pod that's right beans there are bean seeds in the Pod and next spring if we prepare the ground well and plant our bean seeds carefully they will send down Roots into the moist rich soil as they start to grow into new bean plants so you see Bean flowers make seeds that are needed to grow new bean plants here is a pumpkin vine with flowers on it let's see see what these flowers do for the plant the yellow Petals of the flower die but a part is left that will grow into a pumpkin the little pumpkin gets bigger and bigger and still bigger until it is fully grown when we look inside the pumpkin we find many seeds these are the seeds that will make new pumpkin plants you know what come from Apple flowers apples of course and you know what is deep inside the apple seeds seeds that might someday grow into more apple trees many other plants have flowers that produce seeds this dandelion produces seeds dandelion seeds come from its flowers they are easily scattered by the wind these cows are feeding on plants that also have flowers grasses have many tiny flowers in their tassels grass seed comes from these flowers new plants grow from the seed and become food that animals eat almost everywhere we go we find flowers in early spring while many of the trees are still bare and snow lingers on the ground the hepaticas bloom they open their dainty flowers of pink or blue lavender or white our camera shows the growth of these flowers greatly speeded up as they grow they nod gracefully back and forth you might want to pick flowers like these and if you do they will only Wilt in a little while but if you leave them on the plant the flowers will produce seeds like these seeds that will grow into more hepaticus that everyone can enjoy so now you know that flowers are not only pretty but that many kinds make fruits and seeds that we gather and eat flowers make seeds like those you find in packages in many stores and from these seeds new flowers fruits and vegetables grow next time you see a flower you will know how important it really is