THE VEGETABLE KINGDOM. 



479 



This peculiarity is seen in the mangroves (Rhizophora 

 gymnorrhiza, Linn.), strange plants, half tree, half fish, living 

 half plunged in the sea or the lagoons of tropical America 

 and India. Suspended above the water by their bent 

 branches, often quite covered with oysters, these trees let 

 drop through their foliage long roots of embryos which 

 have germinated in the fruit. These, perfectly adapted to 

 the work they have before them, are like little pointed 

 clubs, and have attained a length of from ten to fourteen 

 inches at the time when they are to fall into the water ; 



206. Germination of an Arundo Indica. 



so that they sink deep into the mud which encircles the 

 mother plant, and form a family group around her. 



Germination, which is really vegetable suckling, is only 

 the development of the embryo up to the fall of the coty- 

 ledons. 



This act is almost always accomplished in the ground ; it 

 is only aquatic plants which effect it under water. Some 

 parasites, however, germinate on the plants or animals on 

 the surface of which we find them. This occurs in the 

 microscopic Fungi which attack our hair and beard, and 



