THE ACORN AND ITS GERMINATION os 
the period of germination, the young oak-plant or 
seedling has a primary root some twelve to eighteen 
inches long, and with numerous shorter, spreading side 
rootlets, and a shoot from six to eight inches high, 
bearing five or six leaves as described, and terminating 
in a small ovoid bud (figs. 3 and 4). The whole shoot 
is clothed with numerous very fine soft hairs, and there 
are also numerous fine root-hairs on the roots, and 
clinging to the particles of soil. The tip of each root is 
protected by a thin colourless cap—the roct-cap—the 
description of which we defer for the present. 
About May, in the second year, each of the young 
roots is elongating in the soil and putting forth new 
root-hairs and rootlets, while the older roots are thicken- 
ing and becoming harder and covered with cork; and 
each of the buds in the axils of the last year’s leaves 
begins to shoot out into a branch, bearing new leaves in 
its turn, while the bud at the end of the shoot elongates 
and lengthens the primary stem, the older parts of 
which are also becoming thicker and clothed with cork. 
And so the seedling develops into an oak-plant, each 
year becoming larger and more complex, until it reaches 
the stage of the sapling, and eventually becomes a 
tree. 
