FUNDAMENTAL TERMS. 11 



The ROOTS of this plant consist of a number of little 

 taper divisions, the points of which are very tender 

 and easily bruised ; from near the ends of these little 

 divisions, you have a number of delicate fibres, also 

 with soft and tender points. It is by these points 

 that the root obtains its watery food, from out of the 

 soil ; and if you break off the points the plant will 

 languish until the wounds are healed, and new and 

 perfect rootlets formed ; if it is unable to renew them 

 it will die. This should always be thought of when 

 you wish to transplant any thing ; for the same cir- 

 cumstance occurs in all other plants, and the success 

 of removing shrubs, or flowers, or trees, depends 

 very much upon the points of the roots being pre- 

 served. In the gay Asiatic Ranunculus, which is 

 so often cultivated by gardeners, for the sake of the 

 gaudy colours of its beautiful double flowers, the roots 

 at the time when they are taken out of the ground to 

 be dried, have become so hard and tough, up to the 

 very points, as not to be easily injured ; yet it is pos- 

 sible even in this case to prevent the plants from 

 producing healthy leaves, and well-formed flowers 

 another season, if the roots are carelessly mutilated 

 when taken up. 



The LEAVES are dark-green, and very much divided 

 into lobes, which are narrower in the leaves near the 

 top of the stem than in those near the root. The 

 business of these little appendages of the stem is not 

 merely to render the face of nature pleasing to the eye 

 by the charming verdure they produce ; nor, as in 

 such plants as have eatable leaves, to supply men and 



