In our botanic garden was planted a patch six feet across of what is known as Oswego tea, bee balm, or red-flowered bergamot, an interesting plant with considerable beauty. It grew well for a year, the next year it failed to some extent, and on the third most of the plants died, or nearly died, excepting the spreading portion all around the margin. This is a fairy ring of another type, and represents a very slow mode of travel. As further illustrations of this topic study common yarrow, betony, several mints, common iris, loosestrife, coreopsis, gill-over-the-ground, several wild sunflowers, horehound, and many other perennials that have grown for a long time without transplanting. The roots of plants are seldom much observed, because they are out of sight. In soft ground the roots of the common or black locust extend from twenty to forty feet in each direction, and almost anywhere along these roots buds may appear, and a shoot spring up and become a tree. This peculiarity is worth as much to locusts in the matter of spreading as though the parent trees were able to move about. A number of kinds of poplars and willows, ailanthus, some of the elms, ashes, sweet potatoes, milkweeds, Canada thistles, and others behave in a similar manner. Little bits of Canada-thistle root half an inch long may send forth buds, and each bud grow to be an independent plant. [Illustration: FIG. 1.--Buds and shoots sprouting from roots of the common locust.] Roots have a peculiarity not usually known. They stretch out and crook about here and there, penetrating the crevices of the soil wherever there is the least chance, and the matured portions begin to shorten, reminding one somewhat of an angleworm when one end has been stepped on. By this shortening process the top or crown of a dandelion or plantain is pulled down beneath the surface of the ground.