THE PLANT WORLD. 



123 



ROOT SYSTEM OF THE SNAKE-MOUTH PAGONIA. 



By C. F. Saundeks. 



THE roots of plants often present features which, if studied, will 

 be found of great interest: and in view of the fact that the 

 manuals of botany are frecjuently very deficient in the de- 

 scription of root characteristics, this department of plant study would 

 seem to otfer unusually good chances to the observing to add to the 

 sum of botanical knowledge. The writer was reminded of this fact 

 when collecting last July in a sphagnum marsh where the pretty little 

 orchid, the snake-mouth pogonia {P. ojjhioglossokhs)^ grew in such 

 profusion as to color the bog in many places with rosy blushes of 



bloom. Noticing in taking up some of the plants, even with what 

 seemed an abundance of root, that some of the root strands invariably 

 broke off and remained in the moss bed, I became interested in try- 

 ing to get out a plant with root system intact. A half morning's 

 work resulted in bringing a goodly number of plants to press, each 

 with two or three feet of roots, but owing to the multitude of roots of 

 other plants ramifying throughout the sphagnum and interlacing with 

 the pogonia* s, none of my root si)ecimens when gotten out were found 

 entirely unbroken. The specimens showed plainly, however, that in 

 that marsh the relations of stem and root were about as represented in 

 the accompanying diagram. 



The books, as a rule, discuss the subject of the root of this 



