182 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



appearance, and lience the root is described as moniliform or necklace-shaped 

 (fig. 230) ; while in the Common Dropwort (Spircea filipendula] the fibres 

 bear irregularly shaped knobs or nodules towards the ends ; and this kind of 

 root is distinguished as nodulose (fig. 235). Both forms are fairly common. 

 A far less frequent form is the cumulated (fig. 236), in which the fibre- 

 expansions have a ring- 

 like appearance. Of this 

 we have an excellent ex- 

 ample in the well-known 

 Brazilian plant, Cephaelis 

 ipecacuanha^ which yields 

 the valuable drug of that 

 name. Ipecacuanha 

 formed the basis of the 

 medicine with which the 

 Dutch physician, Adrien 

 Helvetius, treated 

 dysentery so successfully 

 in the seventeenth 

 century; and he had 

 cause to bless the root. 

 The fame of the cele- 

 brated medicine spread 

 to the Court of France, 

 and Louis XIY. gave the 

 fortunate doctor a 

 thousand louis d'ors to 

 reveal the secret of its 

 composition. 



Testicular and fascicu- 

 lar roots have also been 

 looked upon as varieties 

 of the fibrous form by 

 some writers ; though 

 others certainly with 

 less reason have re- 

 garded them as variations 

 of the divided form of 

 tap-root. Perhaps it would be more fitting to place them in a group 

 by themselves, for they seem rather to form a link between those 

 classes than to belong exclusively to either. The peculiarity of the 

 testicular root (fig. 227) is that some usually two of its divisions become 

 fleshy and enlarged so as to form more or less egg-shaped expansions : 

 while in the fascicular root the clustered rootlets become swollen along 



Photo by] [E. Stei 



FIG. 226. LESSER CELANDINE (Ranunculus ficaria). 



A good example of a plant whose fibrous roots become tuberous by the 



storage in them of food material. One of the earliest and commonest of our 



spring flowers. 



