718 XLVI. VERBENACEAE 



' (ii) The " roots " are damaged or eroded on the upper side. 



' (iii) The roots are near the surface. 



' (iv) The parent stem is generally decayed.' 



Now the vitality of teak stumps is remarkable ; trees which have been 

 coj)piced at times send up stool-shoots low down on the stool at the base of 

 the buttresses which are the upward continuations of the main lateral roots. 

 The centre of the original stool may die and in time decay or become burnt, 

 but the stool-shoots remain alive and may form independent root-systems, 

 though they may remain connected by the periphery of the original stump. 

 If these coppice-shoots are in their turn felled, new shoots may be produced 

 on the side away from the original stump : the subsidiary stumps from the 

 second coppicing may in their turn die and decay or become burnt, the result 

 being a group of shoots apparently arising from lateral roots, and in some cases 

 connected together by the root-like living periphery of an old stump, the 

 interior of which has disappeared. Such was evidently the origin of the various 

 specimens of ' root-suckers ' received at Dehra Dun, none of whicli appear to 

 have arisen otherwise than in close proximity to the parent stem. 



The following extract from a paper by Mr. E. E. Fernandez ^ on the 

 production of shoots by teak trees in the Central Provinces throws considerable 

 light on the question of root-sucker production by teak : 



' To ascertam whether these shoots were true suckers, or merely one of 

 the many instances of ordinarj^ shoots that spring up more or less m contact 

 with the parent stool, the following experiments were carried out : 



' 1. I had the soil dug up round eight trees, which I then cut clown below 

 the level of the ground. In two out of the eight cases, just enough of the 

 stem was left to keep the principal roots connected. In the rest the stem Avas 

 quite cut out, separating these roots entirely from each other ; along with the 

 stem a less or greater portion of the root was, of course, removed. The earth 

 with chips of wood was then thrown back. All the trees were over 80 years 

 old, three of them hollow and decaying. 



'2. I wounded the exposed portions of the principal roots of upwards of 

 100 trees. In some cases a chip of bark only was taken off with a sharp axe, 

 in others a portion of wood was also removed ; some of the wounds were made 

 with a blunt instrument, others with a stone, and so on. A considerable 

 number of wounds were more or less covered over with fine earth, or ashes, or 

 cow-dung. 



' 3. Similar wounds were made in the underground portions of many 

 principal roots, and lightly covered over with soil. 



' 4. And lastly, I dug up carefully the extremities of some principal roots 

 and covered most of them up lightly with soil, leaving some in their natural 

 position, others slightly bent upwards, to favour' the production of suckers, 

 if any were likely to come up. 



' Of tlie eight trees exploited underground, five threw up shoots the 

 following rains, among these the two in which a portion of the stem Avas left. 

 These latter, it must be noticed, produced the greatest nmnber of shoots. In 

 the three other successful instances the shoots sprang up from, or close to, 

 the section of the roots ; the three cases of failure were those in which the 

 largest portions of the principal roots were cut away with the stem. Making 

 allowance for diiferences of soil, the strongest shoots were pi'odiiccd by those 

 which had lost the least portion of their principal roots. Experiments 2, 3, 

 and 4 were complete failures ; moreover, an inspection of over 5,000 stools 



^ Forest Conference, Simla, 187(>. 



