LANDMARKS OF BOTANICAL HISTORY GREENE 281 



articulated and leaf-bearing character is in many cases far from 

 being obvious. Such plants as iris and acorus are credited by him, 

 as they always of old had been, with having thick fleshy horizontal 

 roots. But he is none the less first to name as stem any form or 

 phase of rootstock or rhizome, and all the merit of such fine organ- 

 ologic discovery belongs to him. 



The occurrence of adventitious roots at the lower joints of large 

 culms Cordus remarks upon admiringly. He names them fulcra, 

 not perceiving that at their very earliest starting forth from aerial 

 joints they are roots. He makes the subjoined comment on them 

 as he has studied them in the Indian millet: "The plant has many 

 obliquely descending and quite firm roots, but is not content with 

 these ; for when the culm obtains its growth and begins to be top 

 heavy with leaves and the growing spike, it sends down from its 

 inferior joints certain braces which, when they reach the ground 

 put forth roots and fibres. Through Divine Providence, by means 

 of these braces the plants more securely maintain themselves 

 erect against the force of winds." 1 The same is stated more suc- 

 cinctly and briefly in his account of Indian corn. 2 



There are intimations that Cordus is not content with the notion 

 that leaves may -spring from roots immediately, but that leaf 

 bearing should be the prerogative of stems, or of that which repre- 

 sents them. When having in view a plant the leaves of which form 

 a rosette hardly raised above the level of the ground, he seems 

 purposely to avoid writing them down as radical leaves, or root 

 leaves, and is wont to describe them as radiating "around" the 

 root. It is an evasion, certainly; but it subserves its purpose; 

 for he thereby escapes the necessity of saying that they grow from 

 the root. But again, in describing some garden biennials, like the 

 carrot, the part to which the leaves are attached is visibly distinct 

 from the fusiform root, though it is extremely short, too short to 

 be called a stem, and he denominates it the caput, 3 the head above 

 the root. Only tardily has botany come to approve, formally, 

 this one of the improvements in organography which it owes to 

 Cordus. It is now taught that such apparently radical leaves grow 

 from what is called a crown, and is understood to be but a short- 

 ened and thickened stem; but the teaching is still ineffectual to 

 altogether prevent our occasional speaking and writing about 

 stemless plants and root leaves. 



' Hist. PI., p. 143- 

 1 Ibid., p. 112. 

 * Ibid., p. 103. 



