Does source binding require a single root element even for non-arrays?

The documentation on source binding has an aside which states:

Important: A single root element should be used in the template when binding to an array. Having two first level DOM elements will result in an erratic behavior.

However, I'm finding that this is the case even for non arrays.

I have the following HTML, which sets up two div's populated by two templates. The only difference is that the working template wraps that databound spans in a div.

<html>
<head>
<script src="http://code.jquery.com/jquery-1.9.1.min.js"></script>
<script src="http://cdn.kendostatic.com/2013.3.1119/js/kendo.all.min.js"></script>
<title>JS Bin</title>
  <script id="broken-template" type="text/x-kendo-template">
      Foo: <span data-bind="text: foo"></span><br/>
      Foo Again: <span data-bind="text: foo"></span>
  </script>
  <script id="working-template" type="text/x-kendo-template">
      <div>
            Foo: <span data-bind="text: foo"></span><br/>
            Foo Again: <span data-bind="text: foo"></span>
      </div>
  </script>
</head>
<body>
  <div id="broken-div" data-template="broken-template" data-bind="source: this">
  </div>
  <br/>
  <br/>
  <div id="working-div" data-template="working-template" data-bind="source: this">
  </div>
</body>
</html>

And the JavaScript simply creates a view model with a single property and binds it to both divs:

var viewModel = kendo.observable({foo: "bar"});

kendo.bind($("#broken-div"), viewModel);
kendo.bind($("#working-div"), viewModel);

In both cases, only the first root element and it's children are being bound properly. This suggests that every time I databind to template with more than one element I need to make sure it is wrapped in a single root.

Is this behavior documented somewhere? Is there a bug in Kendo or in my sample code? An explanation for why Kendo requires a single root would be great to hear as well.

(Sample code as a jsfiddle)

Solution

It's not documented except in the one place you mentioned. Such is the state of Kendo UI documentation - it's less than complete. I've been using Kendo UI for three years and as far as I can tell you, this is its default behavior and not a bug. Unfortunately, it's one of the many quirks you simply learn (stumble upon) from experience.