Root pruning

Root pruning [ Horticulture ]	Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names
Synonyms: aaa

The practice of cutting off the roots of a pot-grown plant to make room in the container for fresh soil and encourage new root growth.

Root pruning is done in two instances.

One when repotting from one pot to another, roots that have grown in a circle are trimmed to promote future growth.
Also, when planting into the garden or landscape, a plant that needs root trimming.

A side effect of root-pruning is that it increases the density of the root ball. From every root that is trimmed, a number of new roots will emerge from the root-tip that was removed. As the rootball is repeatedly pruned over the years, the rootsystem becomes denser and denser. Within a well-developed rootball, dozens of fine feeder roots can occupy the same volume of soil that one unpruned root may ordinarily use.
So though the size of the rootball is reduced, the volume of root within a certain amount of substrate is sufficient to support the overground part of a plant.
Root pruning does not dwarf or stunt the plant in any way . The plant may lose a little vigour for around 6 weeks after root pruning, as it regenerates its root, but after this short period of adjustment, the plant becomes more vigorous than before as new feeder roots are able to develop in the new soil.

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Holdfast roots [ Botany ]
Dictionary of botanic terminology - index of names

Some species of climbing plants develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place.

Climbing plants, like the poison ivy (Toxicodendron radicans), Boston ivy (Parthenocissus tricuspidata), and trumpet creeper (Campsis radicans), develop holdfast roots which help to support the vines on trees, walls, and rocks. By forcing their way into minute pores and crevices, they hold the plant firmly in place. Usually the Holdfast roots die at the end of the first season, but in some species they are perennial. In the tropics some of the large climbing plants have hold-fast roots by which they attach themselves, and long, cord-like roots that extend downward through the air and may lengthen and branch for several years until they strike the soil and become absorbent roots.

Major references and further lectures:
1) E. N. Transeau “General Botany” Discovery Publishing House, 1994