Page:An introduction to physiological and systematical botany (1st edition).djvu/56

 26 Carrot, the red part of which is all bark. In the Parsnep, though not distinctly coloured, it is no less evident. In the Turnip it is much thinner, though equally distinct from the wood or body of the root.

The Bark contains a great number of woody fibres, running for the most part longitudinally, which give it tenacity, and in which it differs very essentially from the parts already described. These woody fibres when separated by maceration exhibit in general a kind of net-work, and in many instances great regularity and beauty of structure. In a family of plants to which the Mezereon belongs, the fibres of the inner bark have a beautiful white shining appearance like silk. In one of this tribe, a native of Jamaica, and called Lace Bark, that part may be separated by lateral extension into an elegant kind of lace.

In the old bark of the Fir tribe, on the contrary, nothing of this kind is discernible. The bark of the Cluster Pine, Pinus Pinaster, some inches in thickness, is separable into thin porous layers, each of them the production of one season, which do really seem to