124 GENERAL BOTANY 



shrubs and herbs to grow well, we must not put them 

 near shallow-rooted trees. In a garden or coffee estate 

 deeply-rooted trees do no harm, but are rather good 

 as explained above, shallow-rooted trees like species of 

 FICUS, the Banyan, Fig, etc., and PITHECOLOBIUM, 

 the Rain-tree, are fatal. Every gardener knows that 

 pots left under a Banyan tree soon get infested with 

 the Banyan's roots, which are attracted thereto by the 

 water poured into the pots and the rich manure they 

 -contain. A Rain-tree has in the same way a depress- 

 ing effect on any beds of flowering plants, that may 

 be within the range of its roots. So has the ACACIA 



MELANOXYLON. 



2. In Cholam, Wheat, and other cereal plants, the 

 roots are all fibrous, and some come from the stem 

 above the scutellum that is above the hypocotyl. Of 

 these the lowest are the eldest, the uppermost the 

 youngest, exactly the opposite of what we find in the 

 ordinary branches of a tap-root. 



Roots which arise like these, not from another root, 

 but from the stem or branches, are termed adventitious. 



At the base of nearly every Coco-nut palm (a 

 MONOCOTYLEDON) can be seen a number of these 

 fibrous adventitious roots, radiating out into the ground. 



Perhaps, however, the most familiar and most easily 

 recognized of adventitious roots, are those which hang 

 down from the branches of the Banyan tree, and will, 

 if left undisturbed, grow into the ground, becoming 

 after a while, thick stem-like pillars. But that they 

 are roots and not a peculiar kind of branch, is shown 

 by the entire absence of leaves or scales, and by the 

 little brown root-cap which occurs at the end of each. 



