KINDS OF ROOTS. 



35 



and so make props or additional trunks. Growing in this way, there Is no limit to 

 the extent of the branches, and a single Banyan will spread over several acres of 

 ground and have hundreds of trunks all made from aerial roots. 



86. Aerial Rootlets, or such roots on a small scale, are produced by several woody 

 vines to climb by. Enghsh Ivy, our Poison Ivy, and Trumpet-Creeper are well- 

 known cases of the sort. 



87. Air-PIautS. Roots which never reach the ground are also produced by certain 

 plants Avhose seeds, lodged upon the boughs or trunks of trees, high up in the 

 air, grow there, and make an 

 Epiphyte, as it is called (from 

 two Greek words meaning 

 a plant on a plant), or an 

 Air-Plant. The latter name 

 refers to the plant's getting 

 its living altogether from the 

 air ; as it must, for it has no 

 connection with the ground 

 at any time. And if these 

 plants can live on air, in this 

 way, it is easy to understand 

 that common vegetables get 

 part of what they live on di- 

 rectlv from the air. In warm 

 countries there are many very 

 handsome and curious air- 

 plants of the Orchis family. 

 A great number are culti- 

 vated in hot-houses, merely 

 fixed upon pieces of wood 

 and hung up. They take no 

 nourishment from the boughs of the tree they happen to grow upon. 



88. FarasitiC Plants are tliose which strike their roots, or what answer to roots, 

 into the bark or wood of the species they grow on, and feed upon its sap. The 

 Mistletoe is a woody parasitic plant, which engi-afts itself when it springs from the 

 seed upon the branches of Oaks, Hickories, or other trees. The Dodder is a com- 



Air-plaiits of the Orcliis family. 



