MORPHOLOGY OF THE VEGETATIVE ORGANS 103 
the stolons or rhizomes. A common method in case of the 
latter grass is to cut sod into small pieces by means of an 
ax or a feed-cutter and to drop these upon prepared ground, 
forcing them in by pressure of the foot. Or, so readily do 
these pieces of stems grow, they may be sown broadcast 
and harrowed in or pressed in with a roller. 
THE LEAF 
129. The leaf is a lateral organ of the stem borne 
singly at the nodes. A normally developed foliage-leaf 
consists of two parts, the sheath and the blade. The 
sheath envelopes the culm above the node; the blade is 
the long narrow flat portion to which the name leaf is 
often applied. At the junction of the sheath and blade 
is found an appendage called the ligule. 
Leaves are arranged on the culm alternately, in two 
ranks or rows. That is, the blade of a leaf at one node is 
on the side opposite the one below, while the third blade 
is above the first and on the same side of the culm. This 
universal arrangement, easy to observe in corn, is often 
obscured by the twisting of the culm or sheaths, by which 
the leaves may appear to be more or less in one rank or 
to be spirally arranged. 
When the internodes of a shoot have failed to elongate 
so that the leaves remain in a tuft or fascicle, the actual 
distichous arrangement of the leaves is distorted by the 
mutual pressure of these organs, by which they may 
appear to radiate in all directions. 
Leaves may be reduced to scales or bracts. Reduced 
leaves that appear on a shoot below the foliage-leaves are 
called scales. Those that appear above the foliage-leaves 
are called bracts. 
