PLANTS THAT WALK 3 
and develop into new bushes. They are much too 
impatient for that; they know a quicker way. They 
walk; and as they walk, they develop new plants. 
The mother bush selects a good healthy branch; 
she reaches out and carefully bends it down to the 
earth; and down into the ground she sends little 
roots from the branch. The roots collect the nour- 
ishment, send it up into the branch, and, lo, the 
branch itself is soon a flourishing currant bush, 
ready to take another step in its walk by sending 
out a branch of its own to grow rootlets and de- 
velop into still another bush. 
In the same way, white clover, strawberries, sweet 
potatoes, Wandering Jew, and many forms of 
grasses, walk by planting others like themselves. 
Some of them send out “runners” which walk along 
the ground, like the common verbena, trailing ar- 
butus, numerous grasses, and trailing lycopo- 
diums; and each new plant or offshoot, as soon 
as it begins to grow, sends out its own runners. 
Thus new plants are continually made. 
Skilled gardeners and farmers thoroughly under- 
stand how to cover certain parts of potato 
vines, for instance, with layers of soil, and later, 
by cutting the vine near where it has taken root, 
to multiply the number of plants. 
Some plants have “suckers”—branches that 
