The taproot -not better , but very handy !

So what a plant survive the drought. Deep roots,a tap root ,top feeders , or all three . The answer looking at bare ground oocupied by plantain is all three clearly .
( jan20th 2007) Its been very dry . . Most Trees control the water balance of an area the radius length of their height .they mostly rely on surface roots. Plants like the plantain control much more than their height and keep growing inspite of dry surface soils because of the enormously tough and deep tap root (shown - goes down 800mm here ) linked with leaf area control when surface moisture is high - never one nor the other with switching taps and survival .Plants are better designed than we think! Let's face it, they cope better than we think they should with what appears to be impossible odds ! why don't their leaves just shrivel up in the sun like everything else does?