238 



REPORT? ON THE 



Annuals. 



Very few cultivated Primulaceae come under this head. Some of the 

 Androsaces and Anagallis are annuals ; but speaking from a cultivator's point 

 of view, they might be passed over if it were not for one circumstance, 

 frequently ignored or overlooked, though one of great importance — the fact 

 that seedling plants even of those species destined to be perennial are, to all 

 practical intents, annuals. Barring the slender resources stored up in the seed, 

 the seedliDg plants have little store to draw upon, and thus, like the annuals, 

 they must have good food within easy reach, and be provided with rapid means 

 of utilizing it, else they wither away.* 



Centunculus minimus. — A weed no cultivator would bestow a thought 

 upon, unless it were to compass its destruction, may, nevertheless, serve as a 

 useful illustration (fig. 8). It sends down into the soil a slender tap-root, 



Fig. 8. — centunculus minimus. 

 Adult plant to the left ; germinating plant to right, with 

 branched radicle, sessile cotyledons, and single stem. 



which speedily ramifies, just below the surface, branches and branches 

 again till it, as it were, invades a considerable area of soil. There are no 

 great "hold-fast" roots — none are needed, but on the other hand, there 



* " Some [seed] fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth : and 

 forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth : and when the sun 

 was up they were scorched: and because they had not root, they withered away." — 

 Matthew xiii. 5, 6. 



