Page:Enquiry into plants (Volume 1).pdf/83

 ground would be a root, and so would the truffle, the plant which? some call puff-ball, the unigon, and all other underground plants. Whereas none of these is a root; for we must base our definition on natural function and not on position.

However it may be that this is a true account and yet that such things are roots no less; but in that case we distinguish two different kinds of root, one being of this character and the other of the other, and the one getting its nourishment from the other; though the fleshy roots too themselves seem to draw nourishment. At all events men invert the roots of cuckoo-pint before it shoots, and so they become larger by being prevented from pushing? through to make a shoot. For it is evident that the nature of all such plants is to turn downwards for choice; for the stems and the upper parts generally are short and weak, while the underground parts are large numerous and strong, and that, not only in the instances given, but in reeds dog's-tooth grass and in general in all plants of a reedy character and those like them. Those too which resemble ferula have large fleshy roots.

Many herbaceous plants likewise have such roots, as colchicum crocus and the plant called 'partridge-plant'; for this too has thick roots which are more numerous than its leaves. (It is called the 'partridge-plant' because partridges roll in it and grub it up.) So too with the plant called in Egypt