18 NATURE STUDY. 



and ripened its seeds is spongy, and has little of the 

 milky fluid. The inference, confirmed by careful study, 

 is that this strong, fleshy root is not merely a holdfast, 

 but a storehouse of food to perfect the seeds. We see 

 here one way in which the dandelion is adapted to get 

 the most from its environment, and one reason why it 

 flourishes in the midst of and in spite of drought. It 

 has made provision for such contingencies, has a store 

 laid by for a dry day. What do the fine rootlets do ? 

 If the roots of a dandelion plant possessing these fine 

 rootlets are kept immersed in a jar of water, the plant 

 will grow for weeks, developing its flowers, and ripen- 

 ing its seeds. Without these rootlets, with only the 

 tap-root, it dies much more quickly. This indicates 

 what is confirmed by further experiments that the fine 

 rootlets take in or absorb from the soil moisture and 

 the plant food dissolved in it. By keeping the roots 

 of our dandelion plants in water containing measured 

 quantities of various mineral substances dissolved in it, 

 we could readily ascertain that the dandelion absorbed 

 through its rootlets certain minerals in certain propor- 

 tions, and' refused to absorb other substances. The 

 rootlets not merely absorb, but they select. We might 

 discover also, by experiment, that the rootlets, and par- 

 ticularly their tips, show something akin to sensation 

 and intelligence in the character and direction of their 

 growth in the ground. The root tip is so sensitive that 

 Darwin has compared it to the brain of lower animals. 1 



1 See Darwin's Power of Movement in Plants; or Newell's Reader in 

 Botany, Part 1, p. 34. 



