SUBTERRANEAN ORGANS OF BOG PLANTS 
CONTRIBUTIONS FROM THE HULL BOTANICAL LABORATORY 288 
Frep W. EMERSON 
(WITH ELEVEN FIGURES) 
Introduction 
There has been much research on the subterranean organs of 
plants from many standpoints. The analytical study of these 
organs as they grow in nature, however, has chiefly been limited 
to comparatively recent work. In 1899 and 1900 HircHcock (4) 
published results of work done on the Kansas flora, in which were 
brief descriptions of the underground parts of a considerable 
number of native plants, with notes on habitat and length of life. 
CANNON (1, 2) in 1911 and 1913 added greatly to our knowledge of 
the behavior of roots in the soil, showing that some of the current 
ideas have at best been incomplete, and that in the desert there is 
a wide variation in root behavior. More recently a number of 
papers have appeared adding information about the root and 
rhizome systems in a variety of habitats. Among them are papers 
by Haypen (3), Marke (6), Puttinc (7), and WEAVER (o9, 10). 
The present paper deals with work carried on in an attempt 
to discover, first, the exact behavior of the underground parts 
of plants growing in peat bogs, and to some extent to compare these 
organs with those of the same species growing in mineral soil; 
and second, to determine as far as possible the factors involved 
in any peculiarities in behavior noticed. 
While there are many references in the literature to the com- 
paratively shallow roots in swamp lands, it seems that no one has 
gone into detail in determining just how shallow the roots and 
rhizomes are, nor with a few exceptions have the biological relation- 
ships of these parts been analyzed. Yapp (12) has described some 
of the relationships of roots and rhizomes in the fen, and SHERFF 
(8), in his analysis of the subterranean organs in Skokie Marsh, 
359] [Botanical Gazette, vol. 72 
