THE ACORN AND ITS GERMINATION 23 



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 root-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. 



