Vegetative Multiplication and Plant Propagation 229 



Fig. 132. The banana, a perennial herb propagated by planting the "suckers" that de- 

 velop from the thick underground stem. The aerial stem, because of the many layers of 

 overlapping leaf sheaths, appears to be nearly a foot in diameter, but in reality it is only 

 about as thick as that seen on a bunch of bananas. 



