STEMS 



55 



some very large cypress trees found in ISIexieo were thought 

 by Professor Asa Gray to be from 4000 to 5000 years old. 



72. " Stemless Plants."— The so-called stemless plants, 

 like the dandelion (Fig. 27) and some violets, are not really 

 stemless at all, but send out their leaves and flowers from 

 a very short stem 

 which hardly rises 

 above the surface of 

 the ground. 



Now, as will be 

 shown later (Chap- 

 ter XXI), plants live 

 subject to a very 

 fierce competition 

 among themselves 

 and exposed to 

 almost constant at- 

 tacks from animals. 



Any plant which 

 can grow in safety 

 under the very feet 

 of grazing animals 

 will be especially 

 likely to make its 

 way in the world, since there are many places where it can 

 flourish while ordinary plants would be destroyed. The 

 bitter, stemless dandelion, which is almost uneatable for most 

 animals, unless cooked, which lies too near the earth to be 

 fed upon by grazing animals, and which bears being trodden 

 on with impunity, is a type of a large class of hardy weeds. 

 . And while plants with long stems find it to their 

 account to reach up as far as possible into the sunlight. 



Fig. 27. 



The Dandelion ; a so-oalled 

 Stemless Plant. 



