Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/77

 plants are less dense than the parts above ground, but the density varies in different kinds, as also does the woodiness. Some are fibrous, as those of the silver-fir, some fleshier, as those of: the oak, some are as it were branched and tassel-like, as those of the olive; and this is because they have a large number of fine small roots close together; for all in fact produce these from their large roots, but they are not so closely matted nor so numerous in some cases as in others.

Again some plants are deep-rooting, as the oak, and some have surface roots, as olive pomegranate apple cypress. Again some roots are straight and uniform, others crooked and crossing one another. For this comes to pass not merely on account of the situation because they cannot find a straight course; it may also belong to the natural character of the plant, as in the bay and the olive; while the fig and such like become crooked because they can not find a straight course.

All roots have core, just as the stems and branches do, which is to be expected, as all these parts are made of the same materials. Some roots again have side-growths shooting upwards, as those of the vine and pomegranate, while some have no side-growth, as those of silver-fir cypress and fir. The same differences are found in under-shrubs and herbaceous plants and the rest, except that some have no roots at all, as truffle mushroom bullfist 'thunder-truffle.' Others have numerous roots, as wheat one-seeded wheat barley and all plants of like nature, for instance, Some have few roots, as leguminous plants. And in general most of the pot-herbs have single roots, as cabbage beet celery