98 



THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



is over, and it has shrivelled up so 

 completely as to scarcely leave a shred, 

 which by careful searching will mark 

 the spot where it has spent its little 

 span. The Pilewort is so generally 

 distributed that there are few people 

 who have paid any attention at all to 

 flowers, but are able to recognise its 

 star-like blossoms. It is the only 

 member of the buttercup family to 

 unfold its petals at this early season, 

 and its delicate pale green leaves 

 harmonise beautifully with its rich 

 golden blooms. It is not at all par-' 

 ticular as to its habitat, growing as 

 freely in the open sunny meadow or 

 hedgebank, as in the shady wood. It 

 thrives anywhere provided there is 

 a sufficiency of moisture, for it is very 

 impatient of drought,if it has a prefer- 

 ence it is partial to a moist grassy 

 bank sloping to the sun, but it is easily 

 eradicated by efficient drainage. In 

 open woods, and especially rookeries it 

 is often very gregarious, covering large 

 patches to the exclusion of everything 

 else, except it may be the arum, the 

 simultaneously produced leaves of which 

 are sufficiently similar in colour, shape, 

 texture and venation to almost pass for 

 exaggerated giants of the pilewort. In 

 such favourable situations its peculi- 

 arities and developement may be most 

 advantageously studied. If a well-grown 

 specimen be dug up, its root will be 

 seen to consist of a cluster of little fig 

 or pear-shaped knobs, varying in size 



from a barleycorn to two inches in 

 length. Interspersed amongst these 

 are numerous fibres, which are the 

 true functional roots, absorbing the 

 nutriment from, the soil, for the swollen 

 tubers take no part in the nutrition 

 of the plant which produces them, 

 but are simply reservoirs of food 

 materials. Nevertheless each of these 

 little tubers is capable of an independent 

 existence like the " set" of a potato. 

 At a point near its attachment to the 

 parent plant is a dormant bud which 

 under suitable conditions will produce 

 a separate plant. It is very interesting 

 in spring to dig up a good strong 

 plant and see six, eight or a dozen 

 youngsters clustering round the mother 

 plant and struggling for existence. It 

 is curious to watch their attempts to 

 reach fresh fields and pastures new, 

 and to get as far away as possible from 

 their exhausted parental soil. Each 

 tiny tuber at first puts forth a slender 

 shoot, it may be an inch or more in 

 length, and there at its apex the 

 nucleus of the young plant is formed, 

 small rootlets are protruded and burrow 

 into the earth, one or two minute green 

 leaves are pushed through the soil and 

 elevated into the air, the foundation of 

 future little tubers are laid and the 

 whole autonomy is complete. By this 

 time the storehouse of the original 

 tuber has been emptied of its supplies, 

 and the whole fabric shrivells up and 

 disappears. Reverting again to our 



