HOW PLANTS SPREAD AND MULTIPLY 325 
raspberries act in the same way, and, curiously enough, 
generally work in one particular direction. After a time 
the parent plant may die away, but the young ones 
proceed, and sometimes the whole group seems to dive 
beneath a fence to reappear on the other side. 
It is by a growth of this kind that “fairy rings,” as 
they are called, are generally made in meadows. You 
have no doubt often noticed them in fields, and they 
are caused by the steady growth from the centre of a 
fungus family party. In the centre the original father 
and mother soon die away, having exhausted the soil, 
but the separate tips of what in them takes the place 
of roots go on branching towards the circumference, and 
the ring is formed with the bare patch in the centre. 
If the fungus be one that appears aboveground one may 
see standing up a complete ring of little posts, looking 
like a-Stonehenge on a small scale. As a change in the 
character of the soil may check the growth of the ring, 
the resemblance is all the closer, for both the fungus and 
the temple look a little irregular and dilapidated. 
Even in flowering plants the same ring development 
may sometimes be seen, for if a bunch of “ Horse-mint,” 
which you may find in any river ditch, be planted in 
a garden you will see it spread in just the same way, 
leaving its bare patch in the centre, and forming a widen- 
ing ring of a growing number of individuals. It looks 
untidy, however, and the careful gardener will rescue the 
runaway shoots, as he calls them, and bring them home 
again to the centre. 
The Frog-bit, a water-plant with leaves like a small 
water-lily, and a pretty, delicate, white flower, has practi- 
cally given up making seeds, or at least very rarely 
succeeds in making any that will grow. From the base 
