Morphology Of Flowering Plants - Root System

Roots are often modified to perform functions beyond anchorage and absorption, and NCERT describes several support-related modifications in flowering plants. Prop roots are pillar-like roots that hang down from the large horizontal branches of trees such as the banyan, growing into the soil and thickening to give massive mechanical support to the spreading crown. Stilt roots also provide support but arise obliquely from the lower nodes of the stem in plants like maize and sugarcane, not from high horizontal branches, so they differ in origin. Pneumatophores are specialised roots that grow vertically upward out of marshy soil in mangroves such as Rhizophora to obtain oxygen for respiration, not for support. Storage tap roots, as in carrot or turnip, are swollen to store food and do not function in propping a canopy. As stated in NCERT Class 11, Chapter 5 (Morphology of Flowering Plants), prop roots of the banyan provide support. A functional check confirms that branch-derived downward supporting roots correspond uniquely to prop roots.