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Aerial roots

Root \Root\, n. [Icel. r[=o]t (for vr[=o]t); akin to E. wort, and perhaps to root to turn up the earth. See Wort.]

  1. (Bot.)

    1. The underground portion of a plant, whether a true root or a tuber, a bulb or rootstock, as in the potato, the onion, or the sweet flag.

    2. The descending, and commonly branching, axis of a plant, increasing in length by growth at its extremity only, not divided into joints, leafless and without buds, and having for its offices to fix the plant in the earth, to supply it with moisture and soluble matters, and sometimes to serve as a reservoir of nutriment for future growth. A true root, however, may never reach the ground, but may be attached to a wall, etc., as in the ivy, or may hang loosely in the air, as in some epiphytic orchids.

  2. An edible or esculent root, especially of such plants as produce a single root, as the beet, carrot, etc.; as, the root crop.

  3. That which resembles a root in position or function, esp. as a source of nourishment or support; that from which anything proceeds as if by growth or development; as, the root of a tooth, a nail, a cancer, and the like. Specifically:

    1. An ancestor or progenitor; and hence, an early race; a stem.

      They were the roots out of which sprang two distinct people.
      --Locke.

    2. A primitive form of speech; one of the earliest terms employed in language; a word from which other words are formed; a radix, or radical.

    3. The cause or occasion by which anything is brought about; the source. ``She herself . . . is root of bounty.''
      --Chaucer.

      The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.
      --1 Tim. vi. 10 (rev. Ver.)

    4. (Math.) That factor of a quantity which when multiplied into itself will produce that quantity; thus, 3 is a root of 9, because 3 multiplied into itself produces 9; 3 is the cube root of 27.

    5. (Mus.) The fundamental tone of any chord; the tone from whose harmonics, or overtones, a chord is composed.
      --Busby.

    6. The lowest place, position, or part. ``Deep to the roots of hell.''
      --Milton. ``The roots of the mountains.''
      --Southey.

  4. (Astrol.) The time which to reckon in making calculations. When a root is of a birth yknowe [known]. --Chaucer. A["e]rial roots. (Bot.)

    1. Small roots emitted from the stem of a plant in the open air, which, attaching themselves to the bark of trees, etc., serve to support the plant.

    2. Large roots growing from the stem, etc., which descend and establish themselves in the soil. See Illust. of Mangrove.

      Multiple primary root (Bot.), a name given to the numerous roots emitted from the radicle in many plants, as the squash.

      Primary root (Bot.), the central, first-formed, main root, from which the rootlets are given off.

      Root and branch, every part; wholly; completely; as, to destroy an error root and branch.

      Root-and-branch men, radical reformers; -- a designation applied to the English Independents (1641). See Citation under Radical, n., 2.

      Root barnacle (Zo["o]l.), one of the Rhizocephala.

      Root hair (Bot.), one of the slender, hairlike fibers found on the surface of fresh roots. They are prolongations of the superficial cells of the root into minute tubes.
      --Gray.

      Root leaf (Bot.), a radical leaf. See Radical, a., 3 (b) .

      Root louse (Zo["o]l.), any plant louse, or aphid, which lives on the roots of plants, as the Phylloxera of the grapevine. See Phylloxera.

      Root of an equation (Alg.), that value which, substituted for the unknown quantity in an equation, satisfies the equation.

      Root of a nail (Anat.), the part of a nail which is covered by the skin.

      Root of a tooth (Anat.), the part of a tooth contained in the socket and consisting of one or more fangs.

      Secondary roots (Bot.), roots emitted from any part of the plant above the radicle.

      To strike root, To take root, to send forth roots; to become fixed in the earth, etc., by a root; hence, in general, to become planted, fixed, or established; to increase and spread; as, an opinion takes root. ``The bended twigs take root.''
      --Milton.

Wiktionary
aerial roots

n. (aerial root English)

Usage examples of "aerial roots".

It would be caught and trapped along the way by expansive bromeliads, enterprising epiphytes, aerial roots, and thirsty fauna.

Vines and creepers put forth flowers of their own, and in places aerial roots bloomed with their own flowerings.

This tree has many aerial roots that grow downward from wide and sagging branches until they reach the ground and meld with the soil, thus forming natural pillars that support the branches and allow them to die peacefully without crashing to the ground.

Looking at the aerial roots and branches of this great tree, I thought of old political and social systems dying and new ones being born, all in a gradual and nonviolent fashion.

Its trunk, supported on a pyramid of aerial roots, rose twenty feet without a branch.

A thick mass of aerial roots threatened to overwhelm an atmospheric monitoring panel.

Temporarily blinded by daylight, we stepped through into a rich vegetal tangle of green vines, smooth branches, spreading leaves, helical creepers and aerial roots, melted ferns, pendulous waxy fruits: an orgy of green growth.

The shot went over the maccaluca's flattened egg-shaped skull to split leaves and bring down a large cluster of aerial roots.

To make matters worse, lianas and aerial roots were becoming inextricably tangled with the thicket below.

I find the best way is to cling to the aerial roots as well as anything else that comes to hand.

The landscape also changed, for the trees here had aerial roots that looped up like immense scraggy elbows, and the fine tendrils sprouting from the roots emitted a harsh green radiance.

Most striking were the occasional huge trees they passed: great tangles of aerial roots rising some two meters into the air surmounted by an abbreviated trunk that formed almost a platform.