THE ROOT OF THE MATTER. 



dry, while a circle at the circumference is 

 hollowed into a sort of irregular trench, or 

 rude round of tiny pits, by the continuous 

 dripping of the collected gutters. 



Now, of course, the plant wants to utilize 

 to the utmost all the rain it thus intercepts. 

 It would be quite too silly of it to produce 

 rootlets and absorbent terminals in the dry 

 central space covered by the dense umbrella 

 of foliage. But all around the circumference, 

 and especially at the spots just under the 

 runnels, where the water drops from the ends 

 of the boughs, exactly as it drops from the 

 rib-points of the silk-and-steel umbrella, the 

 tree develops numerous minute rootlets, 

 which suck up the rain as fast as it falls, 

 and convey it by fixed pipes to the leaves 

 and growing-points. Every tree and every 

 large herb is thus a regular and well- 

 organized catchment-basin, with its own 

 mains and services ; and it utilizes its water- 

 supply by a cunningly adapted system of 

 sucking rootlets, all placed at the exact spots 

 195 



