Plants and their children

by Frances Theodora Parsons

But do not let us forget that we happen to be talking about the dodder because it is one of the plants which put out roots above ground.

Fig. 119

There is one plant which many of you have seen, that never, at any time of its life, is rooted in the earth, but which feeds always upon the branches of the trees in which it lives.

This plant (Fig. [119]) is one of which perhaps you hear and see a good deal at Christmas time. It is an old English custom, at this season, to hang somewhere about the house a mistletoe bough (for the mistletoe is the plant I mean) with the understanding that one is free to steal a kiss from any maiden caught beneath it. And as mistletoe boughs are sold on our street corners and in our shops at Christmas, there has been no difficulty in bringing one to school to-day.

The greenish mistletoe berries are eaten by birds. Often their seeds are dropped by these birds upon the branches of trees. There they hold fast by means of the sticky material with which they are covered. Soon they send out roots which pierce the bark, and, like the roots of the dodder, suck up the juices of the tree, and supply the plant with nourishment.

Then there are water roots as well as earth roots. Some of these water roots are put forth by plants which are nowhere attached to the earth. These are plants which you would not be likely to know about. One of them, the duckweed, is very common in ponds; but it is so tiny that when you have seen a quantity of these duckweeds, perhaps you have never supposed them to be true plants, but rather a green scum floating on the top of the water.

But the duckweed is truly a plant. It has both flower and fruit, although without a distinct stem and leaves; and it sends down into the water its long, hanging roots, which yet do not reach the ground.

There are other plants which have at the same time underground roots and water roots.

Rooted in the earth on the borders of a stream sometimes you see a willow tree which has put out above-ground roots. These hang over the bank and float in the water, apparently with great enjoyment; for roots not only seem to seek the water, but to like it, and to flourish in it.