I0 INTRODUCTION CHAP, n 



With leaves long-stalked, broad, more or less cordate : Soldanella 

 alpina, Anemone Hepatica ; 



With leaves succulent, but thin in most cases and destroyed in winter, 

 except the youngest : Crassulaceae. 



With runners, by which they can multiply freely : Ranunculus repens, 

 Fragaria, Potentilla anserina, and Hieracium Pilosella. 



With flowers upon 



Foliaged shoots with long internodes : Alchemilla, Geum urbanum ; 



Leafless scapes : Drosera vulgaris, Primula officinalis, Taraxacum, 

 and others. 



Among rosette-plants must be reckoned a number of Grammaceae, 

 Cyperaceae, Eriocaulonaceae, and other Monocotyledones, with grass- 

 like leaves that are crowded together, close to the ground, in dense com- 

 pound rosettes. These plants are particularly found in open country : 

 grassland, steppe, savannah, and moor. 



On high mountains and in arctic lands there are numbers of rosette- 

 plants, whose perennating leaves are more or less coriaceous and fleshy, 

 as in species of Saxifraga. On hot, sunny, rocky sites the leaves become 

 thicker and fleshy, so that there develop such forms as Sempervivum, 

 Echeveria, and other Crassulaceae. These lead to such types as Aloe, 

 Agave, Mesembryanthemum, Bromeliaceae, and others, with undivided, 

 fleshy or leathery, often thorny, long-lived leaves. 



Musa-form. It is well to include among rosette-plants the types 

 belonging to the Musa-form : Gigantic tropical herbs with a perennial, 

 epigeous, evergreen, false stem, composed of the involute leaf-sheaths, 

 and arising from a subterranean rhizome, and large leaf -blades of 

 characteristic venation. 



Most of the species are stemless, but others have tall stems, and thus 

 lead to tuft-trees. 



Tuft-trees. 1 Shoots with short internodes ; leaves densely set on the 

 end of the shoot, large, and few ; buds usually naked. Stem unbranched 

 or with only a few thick branches, none of which are thrown off : 



1. Trunk unbranched and usually exhibiting no secondary growth 

 in thickness ; leaves large and divided : tree-ferns, palms, cycads. 



2. Trunk sometimes sparsely branched, undergoing secondary thicken- 

 ing ; leaves undivided, linear : arborescent Liliaceae (Yucca, Dracaena, 

 Cordyline, Xanthorrhoea, Vellozia). 



3. Strelitzia-form. 



(c) Creeping plants. The assimilating shoots are prostrate, plagio- 

 tropous, rooting, often long-jointed, and sometimes bear short erect 

 branches. Buds naked, or encased in scales : 



Some are herbs : Lycopodium clavatum, Lysimachia Nummularia, 

 Hydrocotyle vulgaris, Menyanthes trifoliata, and Ipomoea Pes-caprae. 



Others are woody : Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi, A. alpina (deciduous) 

 Empetrum, Vaccinium Oxycoccos, and Linnaea borealis. 



It is difficult to distinguish this group from the rosette-plants, such 

 as Ranunculus repens, Potentilla anserina, and Fragaria, which possess 

 epigeous means of travelling. 



Jungermannia-form. In the tropics there are many epiphytic creeping 



1 Drude's (1896) Schopfbaume. 



