"That is a bud," he said, "and presently there will be a lot of leaves there, and those little things coming out here are aerial rootlets.

Its seeds germinate in the calyx of the flower, and, before they drop, grow to be little brown stems, some six or seven inches long and about as thick as a finger, with little rootlets at one end.

It sends out numberless rootlets, each of which, as soon as it reaches the ground, takes root; and between them the palm is stifled and perishes, leaving the fig in undisturbed possession.

" Every book that the boy Fritz could anywise come at was, he tells us, "a fresh green spring-place," where "rootlets, thirsty for knowledge pressed and twisted in every direction to seize and absorb."

Most of the torn aerial rootlets lay already withered amidst a number of dark stains upon the bricks.