HOW PLANTS MULTIPLY WITHOUT SEEDS 



151 



and at every joint of these a root may be formed. 

 The couch grasses behave in the same Way. All 

 grasses of this class are said to root at the joint. 

 When ground is loose, as at the sea-coast, these joint- 

 rooting grasses can sometimes be taken up for un- 

 broken lengths of ten to twenty feet. It is with 

 these long, creeping, rooting stems that the sand- 

 grasses bind together the sand hills on the coast-line. 



10. The runner that a strawberry-plant (fig. 112) 



sends 

 out is 

 just a 

 creeping 

 stem. 

 This has 

 not gone 

 far till it 

 sends 

 down a 



root ; and from this a tuft of leaves rises to form a 

 new plant. Then it runs on a little further, and 

 makes another plant. Give the runner time and good 

 earth, and it will run in this way to the end of the 

 longest bed. It is from the new plants on these 

 runners that new beds of strawberries are planted 

 out. 



11. When you prune your gooseberry or currant 

 bushes, you may often find hanging branches that 

 have pushed themselves into the earth and formed 

 new roots. Each of these may be planted out to 

 form a new bush. Gardeners have learned by 

 watching this plan to bend down the low branches of 

 many other shrubs. They peg them into the ground, 



Eunner of strawberry plant. 



