202 



HUTCHINSON'S POPULAR BOTANY 



with each other, and arch down into the water in innumerable curves, by 

 no means devoid of grace, but hideous just because they are impenetrable. 

 The natives are quite at home in such places, however, leaping or climbing 

 from root to root with ease and agility, though never daring to trust their 

 weight on the treacherous marshy ground. 



Many of the larger trees of India are famous for their buttress roots. 

 Miss Gordon Gumming, who spent two years in Ceylon, was struck with 

 the extraordinary size and height of these roots, which, as she says, " are 

 thrown out on every side like buttresses, evidently to enable the trees to 

 resist the rushing of floods. The buttresses are so high that full-grown 

 men could stand in one compartment unseen by their neighbours in the 

 next division." In the park of the Government Agent's house at Kurene- 



galla, Miss Gumming 

 saw many majestic trees 

 supported by their own 

 wide -spreading roots, 

 which covered the 

 ground for a very wide 

 radius, forming but- 

 tresses like low walls. 

 " The most remarkable 

 of these," she writes, 

 " are the Kon- and Labu- 

 trees; there are also 

 great Indiarubber-trees ? 

 whose roots, though not 

 forming such high walls, 

 are equally remarkable 

 and labyrinthian." 



The roots of the 

 Lum-tree, a forest giant 

 which grows on the 

 island of Ualan, really 

 deserve a place by 

 themselves, and a special 

 term would have to be 

 invented to accurately 

 describe their form. 

 Dr. Hartwig considers 

 them to be without a 

 parallel in the Vegetable 

 World. Each of the 

 Lum-tree's roots runs 

 above-ground to a con- 



Photo by] 



FIG. 254. SCOTS PINE (Pinus sylvestris). 



[E. Step. 



Growing on the edge of a sand-pit, the loose earth has got washed away, allow- 

 ing a good view of the upper root-system of this Conifer. 



