The vegetable world : being a history of plants / with their structure and peculiar properties. Adapted from the work of Louis Figuier ; with a glossary of botanical terms.

  • Louis Figuier
Date:
[1869?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The vegetable world : being a history of plants / with their structure and peculiar properties. Adapted from the work of Louis Figuier ; with a glossary of botanical terms. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    base of the stem. This produces the fibrous root, of which the Melon (Fig. 7), the Wheat-plant, the Lily, and the Palms afford examples. This difference in the structure and constitution 01 the root must be taken into consideration under a great number of circumstances. The old Fir-tree, firmly anchored in the ground by, its deep and spreading roots, braves the most violent storms, and even on the mountain-top resists the most terrible tempests. But the Fan-palm, whose cord-like roots spread themselves horizontally in the sand, is overthrown, beaten down by the wind, when it has reached the height of five or six feet. If the stem of this palm be artificially supported, it may attain, even in our climate, to a height of fifty or sixty feet. In front of the great amphitheatre in the Museum of Natural History at Paris, two Fan-palms thus supported rear their loity heads, sur- mounted with their tuft of fan-like leaves (Fig. 8). Some acquaintance with the form of roots will soon find its prac- tical uses. In watering a plant, it is recommended to pour in the water at the foot of the stem, if it is tap-rooted; on the contrary, if the root is fibrous, it should be poured out at some distance from the stem, in order that the spreading roots may receive the benefit of the water. In the cultivation of plants we manure the surface ot the soil, or of the deeper beds, according as the plant has tap-roots or fibrous roots. In scientific farming a plant with fibrous roots which exhausts the soil on the surface, is succeeded by a plant with a tap-root, which seeks its nourishment at a greater depth in the soil. This diversity in the structure of roots is not the work of chance, but the result of design. The composition of the soil varies singularly in different parts of the globe. In order that ever)'point of the surface of the earth should be covered with vegetation, and that no part of it should be without that incomparable adornment, roots must take very varying shapes in order to accommodate themselves to these varieties in the composition of the soil. In one place the soil is hard and stony, heavy or light, formed of sand or clay ; in another it is dry or moist; elsewhere it is exposed to the heat of a burning sun, or swept, on the heights, by the violence of the winds and atmospheric currents; sometimes it is sheltered from these movements of the wind in the depth of some warm valley. Roots, hard and woody, separated into strong ramifications, yet finely divided at their terminations, are requisite for mountain plants, whose roots are to live in the midst of rocks or between the stones, in order that they may penetrate between the chinks of the rocks, and cling to them with sufficient force to resist the violence of hurricanes and other aerial tempests. Straight tap-
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