How do seeds grow into plants?

A seed can be smaller than a button and look as dry as a pebble. Yet hidden inside is everything it needs to grow into a tall, leafy plant. How does that happen?

A baby plant with a packed lunch

Crack open a big seed, like a bean, and you would find a tiny sleeping baby plant. Tucked around it is a store of food — like a little packed lunch. The baby plant nibbles this food to get started, before it can make any of its own.

Waking up

A seed waits, fast asleep, until the time is right. It needs two things to wake up: water to soften its hard shell, and warmth to feel that spring has come. When both arrive, the seed swells, its coat splits open, and the baby plant stirs. We call this germination.

Reaching down and up

Now the seedling grows two ways at once. A root pushes down into the soil to drink water and hold on tight. A shoot pushes up toward the light, where it will open its first leaves. Soon the leaves catch the sunlight and the young plant starts making its very own food — all grown up!

Wonder fact: Some seeds can nap for an astonishingly long time. Scientists once woke up a date-palm seed that had waited about 2,000 years — and it sprouted!