PLANTS AND WATER 145 
of the rains. Everything is almost complete, 
and is ready to push above the ground at a 
few days’, or even a few hours’, notice. 
This form of response to periods of drought, 
namely the capacity to store up food, and 
even water, is very widespread, but one must 
not imagine that all bulbous plants are to be 
looked on as xerophytes, though the bulbous 
habit undoubtedly does confer on its possessor 
the power or faculty of colonising localities 
such as those just indicated. Many of our 
spring woodland plants are bulbous’ or 
tuberous; but in their case it is not so much 
a question of drought as one of light. 
The bulbous character of the wild hyacinth, 
for example, enables it to thrive in shady 
woods, even under beech and hornbeam, for, 
like its relatives in the open field, it is provided 
with a large stock of available food in the 
bulb scales, which was manufactured and 
stored up during the preceding spring. 
When the warm weather returns after the 
winter the hyacinths rapidly sprout, and their 
green leaves are fully exposed to the light. 
Later on, however, as the trees unfold their 
leaves the light soon weakens, and little or 
no photosynthesis can go on under the dense 
shade of a beech wood. But by this time the 
plants have done their work, and have already 
laid up a stock of food for the following year. 
Their leaves die down, and only the ripening 
seed capsules reveal their presence in the 
wood. 
K 
