416 



RELATION TO ENVIRONMENT. 



tones. The amount of moisture is so great in these tropical 

 regions that the roots are abundantly supplied without the soil 

 relation. Certain of the roots hang free in the air and are pro- 

 vided with a special sheath of spongy tissue called the velamen, 

 through which moisture is absorbed from the air. Other roots 

 attach themselves to the trunk or branches of the tree on which 

 the orchid is growing, and furnish the support to the epiphyte, 

 as such plants are often called. Among the tangle of these 

 clinging roots falling leaves are caught. Here they decay and 

 nourishing roots grow from the clinging roots into this mass of 

 decaying leaves and supply some of the plant food. Aerial 

 roots sometimes possess chlorophyll. 



There are a number of plants, however, in temperate regions 

 which have aerial roots. These are chiefly used to give the stem 

 support as it climbs on trees or on walls. They are sometimes 

 called clinging roots. A common example is the climbing poison 

 ivy (Rhus radicans), the trumpet creeper, etc. Such aerial roots 

 are called adventitious roots. 



797. Bracing roots, or prop roots. These are developed in a 

 great variety of plants and serve to brace or prop the plant where 



the fibrous-root system is in- 

 sufficient to support the heavy 

 shoot system, or the shoot sys- 

 tem branches so widely props 

 are needed to hold up the 

 branches. In the common In- 

 dian corn several whorls of 

 bracing roots arise from the 

 nodes near the ground and ex- 

 KrT tend outward and downward to 

 the ground, though the upper 

 whorls do not always succeed in 

 reaching the ground. The 

 screw-pine so common in 

 greenhouses affords an excellent example of prop roots. The 

 roots are quite large, and long before the root reaches the soil the 



Fig. 448. 

 Bracing roots of Indian corn. 



