ROOT. 
Perhaps the most interesting specialization of the roots of ferns, 
bnt one which I have seen mentioned nowhere else, is the massing 
of very nnmerons roots, all densely covered by a felt of long, brownish, 
persistent root-hairs which form a structure for the storage of water. 
Appropriately to their function, these masses of hairy roots are commonly 
found on ferns growing on naked rocks or tree-trunks, but never on 
ferns with abundant soil, nor on trunks laden with moss. Persistent 
root-hairs as organs of attachment are very common among ferns and 
other plants, and it is doubtless through roots clinging by such means 
that these water-stores have been evolved. Obviously, too, the deepest 
roots in every mass of this kind still fasten the plant to its support, but 
that more than the deepest layer in a mass, which is sometimes more 
than 2 centimeters thick, can serve in this way is of course impossible. 
There is every gradation from these thick pads down to those so thin 
they may serve for attachment alone, as is the apparent case with 
Polypodium macrophyllum. San Bamon ferns with a sufficient mass of 
felty roots so that they must store water are N ephrodium Foxvi (on 
rocks), Davallia pallida , Loxogramme conferta (few), L. indifolia , As- 
plenium tenerum, A. Belangeri, Antrophyum latifolium, A. reticulatum 
(very thick pad), Nipliobolus nummular ice folius (few), Polypodium 
accedens (few), P. 1741 (few), and P. nigrescens, beside all humus- 
collecting species. Fuzzy roots are found on Antrophyum plantagineum, 
Polypodium Zippelii, P. angustatum, P. albido-squamatum, P. caudiforme 
and Dryostachyum pilosum, growing on submossy trunks or subnaked 
rocks, the hairiness of the roots of P. angustatum being evidently depen- 
dent on the nakedness of their substratum. In contrast with the 
preceding, the following epiphytes on mossy trunks have fine, naked 
roots : Humata parvuta , Davallia brevipes, Microlepis ciliata , Lindsaya 
Havicei, L. pulchella, Prosaptia contigua. Polypodium celebicum and P. 
palmatum. 
Asplenium ' epiphyticum has roots of two kinds; those of unlimited 
length, positively geotropic, forming a jacket around the stem, diarch, 
flanked by sclerenchyma, unbranched, with hairs along the sheltered 
side ; and roots 2 to 3 centimeters long, slightly negatively geotropic, 
freely branched, closely appressed to the support, clinging by copious hairs, 
of similar structure to the preceding but with more sclerenchyma. These 
are the clinging roots. The former, under favorable conditions, will 
reach the ground and then branch. A. scandens likewise has roots of 
two kinds. In various scandent ferns stems are massed, and hold water 
as these two Asplenia do by means of the stems and mantles of roots, and 
in a few cases, an in Lindsaya Merrilli , persistent, decurrent leaf bases 
or stipes are useful in the same way. 
The bracing “roots” of N ephrolepis are very familiar objects. Those 
of several species of Diplazium are" very stiff and somewhat spreading 
