THE ROOT. 25 



6. In thus contriving access for itself where it chooses, a 

 root contorts itself into more serpent-like writhing than 

 branches can ; and when it has once coiled partly round a 

 rock, or stone, it grasps it tight, necessarily, merely by swell- 

 ing. Now a root has force enough sometimes to split rocks, 

 but not to crush them ; so it is compelled to grasp by flatten- 

 ing as it thickens ; and, as it must have room somewhere, it 

 alters its own shape as if it were made of dough, and holds 

 the rock, not in a claw, but in a wooden cast or mould, ad- 

 hering to its surface. And thus it not only finds its anchor- 

 age in the rock, but binds the rocks of its anchorage with a 

 constrictor cable. 



7. Hence and this is a most important secondary function 

 roots bind together the ragged edges of rocks as a hem 

 does the torn edge of a dress : they literally stitch the stones 

 together ; so that, while it is always dangerous to pass under 

 a treeless edge of overhanging crag, as soon as it has become 

 beautiful with trees, it is safe also. The rending power of 

 roots on rocks has been greatly overrated. Capillary attrac- 

 tion in a willow wand will indeed split granite, and swelling 

 roots sometimes heave considerable masses aside, but on the 

 whole, roots, small and great, bind, and do not rend.* The 

 surfaces of mountains are dissolved and disordered, by rain, 

 and frost, and chemical decomposition, into mere heaps of 

 loose stones on their desolate summits ; but, where the forests 

 grow, soil accumulates and disintegration ceases. And by cut- 

 ting down forests on great mountain slopes, not only is the 

 climate destroyed, but the danger of superficial landslip fear- 

 fully increased. 



8. The second function of roots is to gather for the plant 

 the nourishment it needs from the ground. This is partly 

 water, mixed with some kinds of air (ammonia, etc.,) but the 



the light, go under the ditch, and into the field again." And the Swiss 

 naturalist Bonnet said wittily, apropos of a wonder of this sort, "that 

 sometimes it was difficult to distinguish a cat from a rosebush." 



* As the first great office of the mosses is the gathering of earth, so 

 that of the grasses is the binding of it Theirs the Enchanter's toil, not 

 in vain, making ropes out of sea-sand. 



