60 ROOT AND CKOWN. 



VI. 



ROOT AND CROWN. 1 

 THE GUIDING OF RAINWATER TO THE ROOTLETS. 



ANY ONE who has been overtaken by a sudden 

 storm, and has taken refuge under the branches of 

 a tree, will remember that the leafy roof above 

 him afforded him shelter for a time, and that the 

 ground under the tree did not become wet. A 

 part of the rain, to be sure, runs down the tree 

 trunk, and in many kinds of trees, as, for instance, 

 the Yew and the Plane, this quantity is not insig- 

 nificant ; but in most trees, the rainwater that thus 

 reaches the earth quickly disappears, and is hardly 

 to be compared with the amount that pours from 

 the circumference of the leafy crown of the tree. 

 This effect is brought about by the position of the 

 surfaces of the leaves. In almost all our deciduous 

 trees, in the Linden and Birch, Pear and Apple, 

 Plane and Maple, Ash and Horse-chestnut, Poplar 

 and Alder, the leaves of the crown slope outwards 



1 Freely translated from the German of Dr. A. Kerner von Mari- 

 laun. " Pflanzenleben." Leipzig, 1888. Vol. I. p. 85. 



