34 TYPES OF BRITISH PLANTS 
a little community, just as a town steadily grows within 
its own borders. But these devices never, or rarely, carry 
a plant very far from its centre, and the great method 
is to send out emigrants in the shape of seeds, as they 
are called in the flowering plants, or spores, as they are 
called in the non-flowering or “ Cryptogamous ” plants. 
The first method is called “vegetative reproduction,’ 
and includes all the various ways in which offshoots may 
start a fresh plant. Perhaps the simplest is that which 
you may see in any strawberry bed. The long, straggling 
branches which gardeners call runners touch the ground 
at some distance from the parent root, and form at that 
point a little root of their own. Here a fresh plant 
springs up, working on its own account, and making for 
itself all the nourishment which it requires. Very soon 
the connecting branch withers away, and the young plant 
is quite independent, ready to send out fresh branches 
and found a new suburb. 
Another very common way of spreading a family is 
illustrated by the Potato. During the summer the 
Potato Plant stores up in its underground stems, which 
we eat, starch and aleuron and other reserve materials. 
In the winter the parent stem which united and fed them 
all dries away, and there are eight or ten separate potato 
plants ready and waiting for the next year’s sun. 
Tree roots also sometimes assist in producing fresh 
individuals. At various points in the roots of an Aspen 
tree, for instance, a young Aspen may start growing up. 
When it is fairly established the root behind it feels that 
its work is done, and dies away. Cases are mentioned 
where a root has wandered thirty yards away from the © 
parent stem and started a fresh tree, thus giving it a 
better chance of plenty of light and air. The roots of 
