. Practical botany. Botany. WEEDS 469 being especially abundant in slightly acid soils. I\lany other kinds of plants, from nettles to goldenrods, are jomed in colonies by long underground The sorrel roots and the goldenrod rootstocks produce many buds, and each bud may grow into a new plant. If the rootstoek is cut to pieces with a hoe, the process of reproduction is only urged on a little. E\ery tuber of some sunflowers (Fig. 67), the nut grass, and many otlier tuher-hcaring plants ma}^ grow into a new individual. Purs- lane plants when hoed up and left on damp soil at once begin t(j
. Practical botany. Botany. WEEDS 469 being especially abundant in slightly acid soils. I\lany other kinds of plants, from nettles to goldenrods, are jomed in colonies by long underground The sorrel roots and the goldenrod rootstocks produce many buds, and each bud may grow into a new plant. If the rootstoek is cut to pieces with a hoe, the process of reproduction is only urged on a little. E\ery tuber of some sunflowers (Fig. 67), the nut grass, and many otlier tuher-hcaring plants ma}^ grow into a new individual. Purs- lane plants when hoed up and left on damp soil at once begin t(j grow, each bit forming a successful cuttmg. These are only a few of the hundreds of examples that might be given of vegetative reproduction among weeds. The way in which fox- tail grass maintains itself in grainfields, making slow grcH'th while it is over- topped by the '\\heat, oats, or rye, and then pushes up rapidly, flowering and seedhag among the stubble, is an excellent illustration of the importance to the plant of the power to tol- erate shade during the early period of growth. It must be remembered that any qualification that helps the ^^â eed in its struggle for existence is a good thmg for the weed, even if it is discouragmg from the point of ^-ie«⢠of the farmer. The survival of mullein and kon^eed in pastures, and of dog fennel, smart^^â eeds, and the offensive-smelling, poisonous Jimson^^eecls (Fig. 300) in barnyards, are only a few examples of the many that could be given to show how some weeds persist by being uneatable or positively offensive. 1 See Bulletin 76, Kansas Agr. Exp. Fig. 353. Portion of a plant of the com- mon sorrel The leaf is drawn about one half natural size. The rLinniug roots of a large specimen would he at least sixty times as long as the piece here shown. Please note that these images are extracted from scanned page images that may have been digitally enhanced for readability - coloration and appearance of these illustrations
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1910, bookpublisher, booksubjectbotany
