THE ROOT ig 



Pistia (see fig. 3), Duckweed (see fig, 13), patari 

 {Limnanthemum), pan-phal or Water-chestnut, &c. 

 In the Sundarbans, where the soil is water-logged, 

 trees such as the sundri {Heritiera minor), the Man- 

 grove, &c., develop special roots which, instead of 

 going down and spreading under the soil, rise from 

 the soil with their tips out into the air. These aerial 

 roots are provided with a scabrous bark full of groups 

 of air-holes, called lenticels, through which the 

 roots are aerated. Such roots are therefore known 

 as BREATHING-ROOTS. This is an instance of special 

 adaptation often seen in plants to meet special cir- 

 cumstances. Plants like kia or Screw-pine give off 

 aerial roots from the lower parts of their stems, which 

 ultimately strike into the ground and support the 

 stem like stilts, hence such roots are called stilted 



ROOTS. 



Plants like Dodders, Cassytha, Loranthus, Oro- 

 banche (see Plate VIII, fig. b), which are parasites, 

 send their roots into the body of their host, and live 

 by sucking its juice by these roots. Such roots are 

 therefore called suckers or haustoria. 



Thick fleshy roots like those of Radish, Carrot, 

 Sweet-potato, shank-aloo, &c., are the storehouse of 

 food reserved by plants for their own use in future. 

 Sweet-potato and shank-aloo plants are propagated 

 mainly by these thick roots. Plants like Radish and 

 Carrot, which are biennial in cold ch'mates, store up 

 food in their roots during the first season of their 

 growth, so that they may put forth flowers, fruits, 

 and seeds at the expense of that reserved food during 

 the second season of their growth. The last-named 

 plants in warm countries like India are annuals, and 

 the food-materials stored up in their roots in the early 

 part of their growth are used up later in the year for 



