PLANTS SPREAD BY MEANS OF ROOTS. 
5 
on water, and some are sticky and thus gain free rides. 
It is not at all improbable that some are carried by the 
winds across oceans and continents. 
It is well known that many of the lower species of 
plants are more widely distributed over the earth than 
most of the higher plants. Every cloud from a ripe puff- 
ball consists of thousands of spores started on the wings 
of the wind for an unknown journey. Their habits are 
not past finding out, but to examine them a person needs 
a good microscope. Most of them have no special com- 
mon name, and with one or two exceptions further men- 
tion of the mode of distribution of this fascinating portion 
df plant life cannot here be made. 
In our botanic garden was planted a patch six feet 
across of what is known as Oswego tea, bee balm, or red- 
flowered bergamot, an interesting plant with consider- 
able beauty. It grew well for a year, the next year it 
failed to some extent, and on the third most of the plants 
died, or nearly died, excepting the spreading portion all 
around the margin. This is a fairy ring of another type, 
and represents a very slow mode of travel. As further 
illustrations of this topic study common yarrow, betony, 
several mints, common iris, loosestrife, coreopsis, gill-over- 
the-ground, several wild sunflowers, horehound, and many 
other perennials that have grown for a long time without 
transplanting. 
The roots of plants are seldom much observed, because 
they are out of sight. In soft ground the roots of the 
