196 THE STORY OF THE PLANTS. 



The life-history of the coltsfoot introduces us 

 also to another conception which we must clearly 

 understand if we wish to know anything about 

 many plant biographies. I have said already that 

 parts of one and the same coltsfoot plant might 

 easily be mistaken for separate individuals; and, 

 indeed, if the stem gets severed, particular groups 

 of leaves may live on as such, in two or more dis- 

 tinct portions. This leads us on to the considera- 

 tion of a great group of plants like the common 

 wild strawberry, in which a regular system of sub- 

 division exists, and in which new plants are ha- 

 bitually produced by offsets or runners, as well as 

 by seedlings. Such a method of increase is to 

 some extent a survival into higher types of the 

 primitive mode of reproduction by subdivision. 



A strawberry plant grows in the first instance 

 from a seed, which was embedded in a carpel or 

 seed-like fruitlet on the ripe red swollen receptacle 

 which we commonly call a strawberry. This seed 

 germinates, and produces a seedling, which puts 

 forth small green leaves, divided into three leaflets 

 each at the end of a long and slender leaf-stalk. 

 As it grows older, however, besides its own tufted 

 perennial stem or stock, it sends out on every side 

 long branches or runners, which are in fact hori- 

 zontal or creeping stems in search of new root- 

 ing places. These stems run along the ground 

 for some inches, and then root afresh. At each 

 such rooting-point, the plant sends up a fresh 

 bunch of leaves, which gradually grows into a 

 distinct colony, by the decay of the intermediate 

 portion or runner. Again, this new plant itself 

 in turn sends forth runners in every direction all 

 round it ; so that often the ground is covered for 

 yards by a network of strawberry plants, all ulti- 



