Roots 1

Abstract

IN treating of the roots of plants this evening, I may request you to dismiss from your minds any expectations or apprehensions of marvellous descriptions of tropical or rare roots on the one hand, or of a list of the peculiarities of various kinds of roots or so-called roots on the other, though it is not improbable that some of the facts will be, in part at least, new to some of you, as they certainly are to many people. I do not propose even to put any new discoveries before you. It has seemed much more to the purpose to show, as well as time will permit, that a vast amount of interesting and important information can be derived from a proper and systematic study of the roots of a common plant— information, moreover, which is important alike to the scientific botanist and to the practical agriculturist, two people who find they have more and more in common each day they come to know one another better. As the diagrams must in part have told you already, I propose that we meet on ground familiar, to a certain extent, to every one; and the sequel will show, I hope, that we have in no way acted unwisely in taking each other into confidence on the subject of an ordinary root, such as is well known to all of us. So much is this the case, that our study may be confined for the most part to the root of the common broad bean and a few other plants of our gardens.