Looking for a sci-fi short story collection with a large vine that makes a copy of a person and a couple on Earth after the sun explodes

I found it. The book is called Out of This World: Tales of Space by Allan Graubard and Gale Burnick. The Venus story is called "The Secrets of Venus", and the sun story is called "The Wind from the Sun".

The books reading level is aimed at grade schoolers and there are several large black and white drawing per story.

The stories in the book are.

The Disappearing Planet

This story is about two scientists who discover a giant flashing light beyond the orbit of Pluto that they think is a new planet. They go investigate and discover it is a giant spaceship and the flashing was a distress message. As they try to leave the ship blows up and kills them.

Small Planet

This story is about a couple that crash lands on a planet. Most of their food is destroyed but there are bushes with edible berries. They also hear strange squeaky noises and find tiny 8 inch tall humans. Eventually the realize the berries are making them shrink.

The Wind from the Sun

The story is about a couple, John and Tandy, who choose to stay behind on Earth even though they know the sun is going to explode. It mentions that years before millions of people had left on huge spaceships. The couple has 14 year old son named Brett and his friend Diane comes over and watches TV. It also mentions that New York, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco are underwater because the ice caps have melted. That night John touches the wall and notices that it is hot enough to burn. The sun has exploded and John turns to kiss Tandy at the end.

The Secrets of Venus

This story is about the first two people to land on Venus. The planet is supposed to be a barren desert, but they see something green from orbit like a long green snake. They land and investigate. When they do glass balls grow off of the snake like thing and form into copies of the two men and kill them.

The Last Martian

In this story everyone is fleeing the planet Mars because the air is running out, but one boy named Paul stays behind.

Gumdrop Planet

A ship lands on a planet and starts sinking so they can't take off again. A crewmember goes to investigate but also starts sinking. They eventually discover the planet is made of sugar and they can dump water on it to dissolve it and escape.

Between Planets

A ship is adrift in space, eventually a huge ship with 8 armed octopus aliens save them.

Third Planet from the Sun

Two people are scouting alien planets for the U.N. They find one that is earthlike. They land and setup a transmitter to communicate with earth. There are strange beasts including a giraffe like creature but they seem friendly. The next morning the transmitter has been broken into pieces. The night after that one of the men goes missing. Eventually we discover that the giraffe like creature did it. It has two heads and shoots green beams out of its eyes, and puts the two men into a cage.