THE WALLFLOWER 



77 



that it is impossible to pull up a plant out of the, 

 ground without lifting with it innumerable fragments 

 of soil, which remain sticking to the hairs on the 

 young roots so firmly that they cannot be washed off. 

 This adhesion to the soil is due to the conversion 

 of the outer layer of cell-wall into mucilage. The 

 student must be very careful never to confuse the. 



B 



FIG. 29. A, Young root, with root-hairs penetrating the 

 soil. Magnified about 7 times. , Root-hairs more highly 

 magnified, showing their close adhesion to the particles 

 of soil (After Kerner.) 



root-hairs with the finer branches or fibres of the root, 

 itself. The latter may appear thin to the naked eye, 

 but they are very thick in comparison with the hairs, 

 and always have the same structure as the main root, 

 on a smaller scale, while, as we have seen, the root- 

 hair is a single long cell (see Fig. 29). 



The root bears no leaves : its only appendages are ^ 

 (1) the rootlets, which repeat in essentials the struc* 

 tnre of the root which bears them ; and (2) the hairs. 



The growing point of the shoot is, as we know, 



