Elementary botany (1898) Elementary botany elementarybotany00atki Year: 1898 OCCUPA TIOiV OF LAND. 377 are constantly springing up, now flourish, bear seed, and take more or less complete possession of the soil. Impoverished land, abandoned by man, becomes nurtured by nature. Weeds, grass, flowers, spring up in great variety often. Some can thrive but little better than the abandoned crops, while others, peculiarly fitted because of one or another adapted structure or habit, flour- Fig. 47s. Abandoned field, in Alabama, growing up to broom-sedge and trees. (Photograph by Prof. P. H. Mell.)
Elementary botany (1898) Elementary botany elementarybotany00atki Year: 1898 OCCUPA TIOiV OF LAND. 377 are constantly springing up, now flourish, bear seed, and take more or less complete possession of the soil. Impoverished land, abandoned by man, becomes nurtured by nature. Weeds, grass, flowers, spring up in great variety often. Some can thrive but little better than the abandoned crops, while others, peculiarly fitted because of one or another adapted structure or habit, flour- Fig. 47s. Abandoned field, in Alabama, growing up to broom-sedge and trees. (Photograph by Prof. P. H. Mell.) ish. Crab-grass and other low-growing plants often cover and protect the soil from the direct rays of the sun, and thus conserve moisture. The clovers which spring up here and there, by the aid of the minute organisms in their roots, gather nitrogen. The melilotus, the passion flower, and other deep-rooted plants reach down to virgin soil and lift up plant food. Each year plant remains are added to, and enrich, the soil. In some places grasses, like the broom-sedge (andropogon) succeed the weeds, and a turf is formed. 687. Seeds of trees in the mean time find lodgment. During the first few years of their growth they are protected by the
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