ome
time, when they are young in their buds, so some flowers growing on the
ground have to live for a while, when they are young, _in_ what we call
their {36} roots. These are mostly among the Drosidae[16] and other humble
tribes, loving the ground; and, in their babyhood, liking to live quite
down in it. A baby crocus has literally its own little dome--domus, or
duomo--within which in early spring it lives a delicate convent life of its
own, quite free from all worldly care and dangers, exceedingly ignorant of
things in general, but itself brightly golden and perfectly formed before
it is brought out. These subterranean palaces and vaulted cloisters, which
we call bulbs, are no more roots than the blade of grass is a root, in
which the ear of corn forms before it shoots up.

15. Thirdly, Ruins. The flowers which have these subterranean homes form
one of many families whose roots, as well as seeds, have the power of
reproduction. The succession of some plants is trusted much to their seeds:
a thistle sows itself by its down, an oak by its acorns; the companies of
flying emigrants settle where they may; and the shadowy tree is content to
cast down its showers of nuts for swines' food with the chance that here
and there one may become a ship's bulwark. But others among plants are less
careless, or less proud. Many are anxious for their children to grow in the
place where they grew themselves, and secure this not merely by letting
their fruit fall at their feet, on the chance of its growing up {37} beside
them, but by closer bond, bud springing forth from root, and the young
plant being animated by the gradually surrendered life of its parent.
Sometimes the young root is formed above the old one, as in the crocus, or
beside it, as in the amaryllis, or beside it in a spiral succession, as in
the orchis; in these cases the old root always perishes wholly when the
young one is formed; but in a far greater number of tribes, one root
connects itself with another by a short piece of intermediate stem; and
this stem does not at once perish when the new root is formed, but grows on
at one end indefinitely, perishing slowly at the other, the scars or ruins
of the past plants being long traceable on its sides. When it grows
entirely underground it is called a root-stock. But there is no essential
distinction between a root-stock and a creeping stem, only the root-stock
may be thought of as a stem which shares the melancholy humour of