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---continuation commentary #28b----

In the etching, you will see a branch like this -- belonging to a root that is stretching along the ground and rising at a slant -- as it makes directly for the soil where it might take nourishment and anchor itself. A different, thicker root climbs sideways over the other, more powerful primary root, to which it adheres firmly. But then this same root is about to be embraced by a small branch born from it itself. Thus it almost appears before your eyes how the root branches, born one from another, in turn vie with each another, and how the older roots are killed by their offspring. The roots of these hardy fig trees are usually enveloped with a fairly thin, smooth bark; this undoubtedly is to be explained with reference to the natural conditions there, especially the action of the heat. Indeed, it has been observed that bark tissue retains heat more than wood tissue, from which it follows that thicker, denser barks occur in cool locations more often than in warm.

Now, let us pass from observation of this luxuriance in the formation of roots to the trunk itself. Its bark too is rather glabrous; on the middle of the trunk, however, a small bundle of white threads hangs straight down. These little cords are the coagulated milky juices of which those trees are full. When the trees are wounded, or overfull of liquid, that milky sap often flows out in such quantity, and turns into a leathery material so quickly, that sometimes the greater part of a tree is seen wrapped in these elastic strings as if in a hide.

Apart from this tree, there are parasites with claims on our attention. Some, stretched tight like the ropes on ships' masts, seek the ground perpendicularly from the tree-tops, others with torturous bends. Some resemble simple lines of rope, others are composed of several similar cords close together. These are undivided, those are split into branches, these smooth, those flat, grooved or raised at the edge. There the color is white, here dark-brown or black. It rarely happens that leaves are apparent on these little bundles, still more rarely that flowers, since they lie hidden at the forest top amid the foliage; below, for 20-40 feet, they are entirely bare. For this reason extremely few plants of this kind have been systematically classified by botanists; nor would you be able to classify and describe them, unless, at the time they flower and put out fruit, you were to knock to the ground, all at once, the trees through which they stretch. A traveler would hardly be equal to such a difficult, time-consuming task.