Missouri Botanical 
Garden Bulletin 
Vol. IV St. Louis, Mo., September, 1916 No. 9 
BULBS AND TUBEROUS PLANTS 
_ The brilliancy of coloring, ease of culture, and compara- 
tive cheapness make bulbous plants the favorites with the 
amateur, as well as the professional gardener. Moreover, the 
amateur is not placed at a disadvantage because of his lack 
of skill, for the bulbs have their latent beauty stored up in 
them and at first are little dependent upon the knowledge 
of the grower. These plants are used in formal beds and 
borders, as well as the wild spots, the rockery and the aquatic 
garden, the shady nooks and the sunny places. At the 
present time the natural arrangement of bulbs is beginning 
to supplant the formal manner of grouping, and they are 
ing planted profusely in masses in the open lawn, around 
the bases of evergreens, in front of shrubbery borders, and 
Scattered upon terraces and slopes. The effects are not last- 
ne but nothing could be more pleasing in the spring than 
tufts of crocuses, daffodils, or snowdrops contrasted against 
the light green of the rejuvenated lawn or peeping from 
beneath the trailing branches of the evergreens. 
_ Popularly, any plant that stores up food during the grow- 
ing season in a fleshy root, so that it lasts through the next 
Season of bloom, is known as a “bulb.” According to their 
structure “bulbs” may be classified as bulbs, corms, tubers, 
rhizomes, pips, etc. A bulb is a specialized bud which is 
made up of an axis closely encased in bulb-scales or thick- 
ened leaves, at the base of which roots are emitted. The more 
common bulbs are lily, hyacinth, daffodil, snowdrop, tulip, 
ete. <A corm differs from a bulb in that it is solid through- 
out, the expansion being composed of the swollen base of 
the stem, the leaves having degenerated into sheaths which 
act as a protective envelope. Gladiolus, crocus, and mont- 
bretia are representatives of this class. A tuber is a thick- 
ened portion of the underground stem having buds at the 
surface, like the dahlia or potato. A rhizome or rootstock is 
a fleshy underground stem divided into nodes, as in canna, 
each branch developing a terminal bud at the end of the 
; (143) 
