Sprouting means to begin to develop from a seed. You may have seen eyes on a potato with little yellow shoots coming from them. If you see this, you are looking at a sprouting potato. The picture above shows a sprouting bean. Before it sprouted all you would have seen is the bean.

The first thing that usually happens when a seed sprouts is that it develops a root. The seed is usually dry, and if the plant is to grow it will need water. This is what the root will provide.

The root grows down, depending on the food in the seed for its survival. But it will use up the nourishment very quickly, so the next thing that happens is that a shoot begins to grow upwards. When it reaches the soil surface, it then spreads out its first leaves. The leaves use sunshine to make more food. At this point the new plant does not need its seed anymore and the sprouting part of its life has finished.