AND ITS DIFFERENT KINDS.

89

Root, is of many different kinds. The most ge-nuine consists of fleshy knobs, various in form,connected by common stalks or fibres, as in thePotatoe , Solatium tuberosum , and Jerusalem Ar­ tichoke *, Helianthus tuberosus,Jacq. Hort. Vind.t. 161. These knobs are reservoirs of nourish-ment, moisture, and vital energy. Several of theVetch or Pea kind are furnished with them on asmaller scale ; see Vida lathyroides, Engl. Bot.t. 30, and several species of Trifolium , either an-nuals, as glomeratum, t. 1063, or perennials, asfragiferum, t. 1050.—The knobs in these in-stances are only of annual duration; in the Pce-onia, Piony, t. 1513, and Spiraea Filipendula, Drop-wort, t. 284, they are perennial.—In the Orchideaeof Europe they are mostly biennial. The root inmany of the latter consists either of a pair ofglobular or oval bodies, f. 10, as in Satyriumhircinum, or rather Orchis hircina, Engl. Bot.t. 34, Ophrys aranifera, t. 65, and apifera, t. 383;or are palmate, that is, shaped somewhat like thehuman hand,/. 11, as in Orchis maculata, t. 632.Of these globular or palmate knobs or bulbs oneproduces the herb and flowers of the present year,withering away towards autumn, and the other isreserved for the following season, while in the

* A corruption, as I presume, of the Italian name Girasole Arti-ciocco, Sun-flower Artichoke , as the plant was first brought from Peru to Italy , and thence propagated throughout Europe .