.
and exploit all these layers of dead leaves, soil, and subsoil.
The length of roots produced is very much greater than any one would suppose. A one-year-old Scotch fir seedling when grown in sand produced in a season a total length (branches, etc.) of no less than thirty-six feet of root. The total surface of this root system was estimated to be about twenty-three square inches. This little Scotch fir after six months' growth was laying under contribution a cone of earth twenty to thirty inches deep and with a surface of 222 square inches. In certain kinds of corn the same author estimated the total length of the roots as from 1500 to 1800 feet. S. Clark estimated the length of the roots of a large cucumber plant as amounting to 25,000 yards (fifteen miles), and made out that it was occupying a whole cubic yard of ground.
Clover roots are said to go down to depths of six or nine feet, but many weeds go deeper still. Coltsfoot, for instance, may be found, according to a friend of mine, living at a depth of twenty spades. In Egypt and other places the roots of acacias go down to twenty feet or even further, so that they can tap the water supplies, which are at a great depth.
But a still more extraordinary fact is the manner in which the root-branches arrange to grow in such a way that they search every part of the soil.
The main root in many plants grows straight down, or as nearly as it can do so. Its branches are inclined downwards at a quite definite angle which is often 30°-45° to the surface. Moreover, these branches come off in quite a regular way. Each keeps growing in its own special direction to the east, south-east, or west, or whatever it may be, of its parent root.
Have they some extraordinary sense of the direction of the points of the compass? It is said that if a side root, which is growing, say for instance downwards and westwards, is turned in some other direction, it will after a time resume its original westerly voyage. This fact is a most extraordinary one, if true, but it can scarcely be said that it has been proved, and, as will be shown later, there are other curious facts in the behaviour of roots which might explain the experiment without assuming that roots know the points of the compass.
If one cuts a branch of willow and plants it upside down in the earth, it will very likely take root and grow. Its appearance will be most extraordinary, for the roots will grow downwards, whilst the branches, instead of growing in the direction of the old branches, turn round and grow upwards.34
Why do roots generally grow downwards? The fact is so familiar that the difficulty of answering does not, at first sight, seem so great as it really is.
Pfeffer, the great physiologist, has the following interesting comparison. Suppose a man is trying to find his way in the dark, then a single lingering ray of light gives him an impulse to walk towards it.35 So our root, also in the dark, feels the pull of gravity and endeavours to grow downwards. Others have compared the direction of gravity to the sailor's compass, and suppose that the root is guided in the same sort of way.
But a young, vigorous root making or forcing its way in darkness through stones and heavy earth is a most interesting and fascinating study.
There are the most extraordinary coincidences in its behaviour. It has the property of always doing exactly the right thing in any emergency.
It is of course intended to keep below the ground and in the dark. So we find that if roots are uncovered, they will turn away from the light and burrow into the earth again. They avoid light just as a worm would do.
Roots are of course intended to absorb or suck in water. If there is a drain in the soil or a place where water collects, the roots will grow towards that place. Very often they form a dense spongy mass of fibres which may almost choke the drain. Along a riverside one can often find great fibrous masses of tree roots near the water. But how does the root learn that the water is there and turn away from its original track to find it? It certainly does so!
Then again, Herr Lilienfeld has recently shown that roots seem able to turn away from poisonous materials in the soil and to seek out and grow towards valuable and nutritious substances. He found that peas, beans, sunflower, and other roots were very sensitive to different substances in the soil, and were directly attracted by what was good for them and turned aside from what was unwholesome.
This property and the power of growing towards water probably explain the mysterious sense of direction alluded to above, for roots will take a line which has not been exhausted by their neighbours.36
But of all these wonderful properties, the most remarkable is the way in which roots find their way past stones and other obstacles in the soil. They insinuate themselves into winding cracks and crawl round stones with an ingenuity that makes one wonder if they can possibly be without some sort of intelligence.
It is the very tip or end of the young root that seems to be responsible; for if, in the course of its journeyings underground, it should strike a stone or something hard, the root does not grow on and flatten itself.
But some sort of message is sent back from the tip to the growing part which is a short distance behind it. After this message has been received, the growing part begins to curve sideways, so that the tip is brought clear of the obstacle and can probably proceed triumphantly upon its way. The inexplicable part is that the growing part which curves has never been touched at all, but simply answers to the message from the tip.37
This is perhaps the most reasonable and intelligent behaviour found in the whole vegetable world, and it is not surprising that Darwin compared the root-tip to a brain.
These extraordinary responses fill one with astonishment, but there are others still more interesting and remarkable. It will be remembered that we have already shown how different the soil is at different levels. The subsoil, soil, and uppermost layers are all quite different from one another.
This may explain why it is that many plants seem to prefer to develop their roots at one particular depth below the surface. Not only so, but they find their own favourite level in the most persevering way.
If, for instance, you sow a barley-corn at too great a depth, the seed germinates and forms a few roots, but it immediately sends out a stem which grows upwards towards the light. As soon as this stem has reached the proper place, which is just below the surface, there is an enormous development of roots, which begin to search and explore their favourite stratum of soil.38
In some few cases one can see in a dim sort of way the reason for the level which certain plants prefer. Thus the underground stems of the common Thistle, which are very long and fleshy, are found just a few inches below the level usually reached by plough or spade. This makes it very difficult to tear them out. Even if grubbers with long spikes which reach as deep as these buried stems are driven through the ground, it generally happens that the stems are only cut in pieces and not dragged up. These hardy weeds are not much injured by little accidents of this kind, for each separate bit will form upright thistle stems next year. In fact if one cuts this fleshy subterranean runner of the Thistle into pieces a quarter of an inch long, each piece will probably become a Thistle.
Sometimes indeed these weeds are carried from one field to another by pieces of them sticking in the very machines which are used to eradicate them.
The Bishopsweed is one of the hardest cases. The writer was once ambitious enough to try to dig up an entire plant of this horrid weed. The first foot or so revealed no sign of the end of the branching runners, and it was not until a hole about four feet deep and five feet across had been excavated that there was any sign of an end to the plant.
When it was at last removed, the original deeply buried stem was found to give off branches which again branched in a most complicated manner, until almost every green shoot of Bishopsweed39 within a space six feet in diameter was seen to be really a branch of this one original plant! So to eradicate the plant it would have been necessary to dig over the whole garden to a depth of at least five or six feet.
How did the stem get down to such a depth below the surface? This is one of the most curious stories in plant
Kerner and Oliver,
Lilienfeld,
If the growing part itself touches a stone it curves round the stone, not away from it – the reverse of the reaction at the tip!
Pfeffer,
This weed is a cure for gout, and seems to have been called Bishopsweed because it was supposed that gout was a common ailment of bishops!