The Seed Becomes a Plant First stage: Germination

Seeds, which resemble little bits of dry wood, are actually bearers of genetic codes which have thousands of pieces of information about plants inside them. All the information about the plant the seed will later produce is hidden inside it. Complete information about it, from the little hairs on the end of its roots, to the tubes inside its stem, its flowers, and the fruit it will bear, exists inside the seed, down to very last tiny detail.

Birds also help those parts of the seed which will carry out the reproduction to reach the soil by eating the seed's fleshy parts.

After fertilization, the first stage in a seed's becoming a flower is germination The seed, waiting under the ground, is only wakened into action when factors such as warmth, moisture, and light come together. Before that, it is dormant. When the time comes, it wakes up and starts to grow.
There are a number of stages in the germination process. In the first place, the seed must taken in water so that the cells inside it become hydrated and capable of metabolic activity. Once metabolic activity begins, the root and the shoot begin to grow, and at this stage the cells start to divide. In order for particular functions to be brought about by specialized tissues, the cells have to differentiate. All these processes require a great deal of energy.
For the seed to grow, it needs nourishment. But the seed needs a preliminary source of food until it can obtain the required minerals from its roots. So, where does the seed find the nutrients it needs to grow?
The answer to this question lies in the construction of the seed. The seed's stored food reserves which forms together with it during the fertilization process is used by the seed until it gives off a shoot and appears above the ground. Seeds need the supplementary nutriments in their bodies until they reach the stage of being able to produce their own food.
When all of the conditions are just right, germination begins. The seed takes in water from the soil and the embryo cells start to divide. Later, the seed coat opens. First tiny roots, the beginning of the root system, appear and grow downwards in the soil. Following the development of the tiny roots, the buds which will produce the stem and leaves develop.
Germination begins under the earth, then the new little plant heads up towards the light and grows ever stronger. Once the first leaves have opened, the plant can begin to produce its own nutrition by means of photosynthesis.

When the time comes, seeds wake out of their sleep and emerge from the soil, brooking no obstacles.

What has been explained so far is actually common knowledge, having frequently come under observation. Plants emerging from seeds under the soil is something which everyone is perfectly familiar with. But while the seedling is growing, a true miracle takes place. Seedlings, which weigh only a matter of grams, have no difficulty in making a hole through what may be some kilograms of earth on top of them. The seedling's only aim is to emerge from the soil and reach the light. Plants which have begun to germinate move their slender trunks as if in empty space and slowly head for the daylight, as if there were no heavy weight on top of them. They emerge from the soil in the face of the force of gravity, ignoring in other words all the physical laws which apply to them.
The tiny seed and its roots just half a millimetre wide come to no harm from the soil, which normally tends to rot things and destroy them. Quite the contrary, they rapidly grow and develop.
Experiments were carried out to stop seedlings reaching the daylight by closing off the escape route on top of them by various methods. The results were very surprising. The seedlings put out shoots long enough to get around any obstacle on top of them, or else created pressure where they lay and again succeeded in reaching daylight. While plants are growing they can create considerable pressure where they are. For example, a seedling growing in the cracks of a newly built road can actually open the cracks up still further. In short, they brook no obstacles as they head toward the daylight.
Shoots always grow vertically as they emerge from the soil. As they do this, they oppose the force of gravity. The roots, on the other hand, obey the force of gravity as they head downwards. This raises the question: "How is it that two organs formed on the same plant should start growing in different directions?" In order to answer this, let us have a look at some of the mechanisms in plants.

1. Primary root 2. Lateral root 3. Stem 4. Cotyledon 5. Seed coat 6. First two leaves 7. The last bud enables the branch to grow When seeds begin to germinate, nothing prevents them from emerging from the soil and reaching the sunlight, neither the weight of the soil on top of them, nor any other obstacle. A seed which begins to germinate will soon begin to produce its own food by photosynthesis. As it grows, the seed slowly turns into a copy of the parent plant. While the shoots grow towards the surface, the roots spread into the depths of the soil to gather the raw materials for photosynthesis.

Two factors govern the growth of plants: light and gravity. The first root and shoot which emerge from the seed possess systems which are very sensitive to these two factors.
There are cells in the root of a germinating plant which can sense gravitational signals. In the shoot, which heads upwards, there are other, light-sensitive, cells. This sensitivity of the cells to light and gravity governs the different parts of the plant's heading in the correct direction. These two stimuli also enable the direction of growth of the root and shoot to be corrected if they are not entirely vertical.29
If we have another look at what we have already established, it will be seen that we are in the face of an extraordinary situation here. The cells which make up the plant are beginning to grow different from one another, and are changing shape to form the different parts of the plant. Furthermore, as we have seen, the shoot and the root are growing in opposite directions.
Let us now consider the root's heading down into the depth of the soil with the force of gravity, together with the shoot's heading up towards the surface. The movement of these structures, which present an image of being quite powerless, as they split the soil, will bring many questions to mind. In particular, there is an important moment of decision at this point. Who, or what, is it which establishes the moment, in other words the time the cells begin to divide, and which shows them what direction to go in? How is it that every cells acts with the knowledge of which region it is to take its place in? How is it that no confusion arises, for example, how is it that the root cells never start to head upwards?

Plants have a great variety of coats. The coat of the hazelnut is formed of a rather hard, difficult-to-break, shell-like substance. When the time comes, the seed inside the casing breaks that hard material and emerges, brooking no obstacles.

There is basically only one answer to all questions of this sort. It is clearly not the plant itself which takes and implements this decision, or sets up the necessary systems so that no confusion arises and forms them within its own body. Neither is it possible for these systems to have come about through the intervention of any other living thing. And the cells which make up the plant cannot do it. All these factors show us that plants are all directed and governed by another force. In other words, there must exist a higher intelligence which created all the structures they possess, leading the cells to make their decisions and showing them which way to go in order to perform their functions. There is no doubt that this superior wisdom belongs to God, the Lord of all the Worlds.