AND ITS DIFFERENT KINDS. 87 



Many plants with solid bulbs are provided by Nature 

 to inhabit sandy countries, over the face of which, 

 in the dry season succeeding their flowering, they are 

 scattered by the winds to a great distance, as hap- 

 pens to our own Poa bulbosa, Engl. Bot. t. 1071, 

 as well as to numerous beautiful productions of the 

 Cape of Good Hope. 



7. Radix articulata,Qrgranulata,f. 16. A Jointed or 

 Granulated Root agrees very much with those de- 

 scribed in the last section. The Oxalls Acetosella, 

 Wood Sorrel, Engl. Bot. t. 762, and Saxifraga 

 granulata, White Saxifrage, t. 500, are instances of 

 it. The former has most affinity with scaly bulbs, 

 the latter with solid ones. 



It is evident that fleshy roots, whether of a tuberous 

 or bulbous nature, must, at all times, powerfully resist 

 drought. We have already mentioned, p. 32, the ac- 

 quisition of a bulb in Phleum pratense, Engl. Bot. 

 t. 1076, whenever that grass is situated in a fluctuating 

 soil, by which its vital powers are supported while the 

 fibrous roots are deprived of their usual supplies. In 

 this state it becomes the Phleum nodosum of authors ; 

 but on being removed to a thoroughly wet soil, it re- 

 sumes the entirely fibrous root, and luxuriant growth, 

 of Ph. pratense. I have also found Alopecurm geni- 

 culatm, t. 1250, (an aquatic grass, whose root is natu- 

 rally fibrous and creeping,) growing with an ovate 

 juicy bulb on the top of a dry wall. This variety has 



