LIFE-HISTORY AND PHYSIOLOGY. 3 



Some species produce these bud-growths all over the corm; and in two, C. 

 nudiflorus (Plate VI), and C. lazicus (Plate XII), this growth developing as stolons from 

 various parts of the corm, independently of the old axis, is a constant feature. In 

 two others, C. speciosm (Plate LXIV, and Plate A, figs, i and 3,) and C. Fleischeri 

 (Plate LXVI), the buds are abundantly developed as bulbils, or cormlets, round the 

 circumference of the old corm, and remain for the first year without producing foliage. 



Concurrently with the commencement of the ascending growth is the production 

 ol roots from the bottom of the corm; but here again the old axis of growth is 

 avoided; the roots are never produced directly from the old basal scar, but at some 

 distance round its circumference, and occasionally from the top of the corm. I 

 have been unable to trace any connection between them and the old vascular 

 column. 



The abundance of roots in different species bears no relation to the size of the 

 corm, neither is the size of the corm related to the size or abundance of the flowers; 

 but a large production of roots is directly related to the floriferous power of the 

 species. The delicate roots are the most permanent organs in the cycle of life, 

 and remain unimpaired till the old corm, to which they are attached, has been 

 completely absorbed, and replaced by its successor. The new corm during its 

 growth produces no true roots; but during the latter stages of its expansion, a single 

 tuber-like ephemeral root is occasionally thrown out, and again re-absorbed at the 

 maturity of the corm. This is represented in Plate A, fig. 6, and also on Plate 

 XIX. fig. 3. 



Although of only occasional occurrence in the reproduction of the fully-matured 

 corm, the ephemeral root is a constant feature in the later stage of the process of 

 germination; and its production accompanied by a single true root-fibre (Plate C, 

 figs. 7, 8, 9, and 10,) is concurrent with the first stage of the growth of the corm. 

 Its occasional appearance in the growth of the matured corm, would seem to be 

 a character inherited from the process of germination ; on the other hand, the true 

 root-fibre, which is always produced from the base of the seminal corm (Plate C, /,), 

 never appears in the after-stages of corm reproduction, till the growth of the plant 

 in the following season. 



The successive stages of the process of annual replacement is exhibited in Plate 

 A, figs. 1-6. The new growth is as it were planted into the substance of the old 

 corm, in a position having no relation to the axis of its own growth: the new 

 corm expands, absorbs the entire substance of the parent, throwing off a new set 

 of tunics from its surface, which is added internally to the successive tunic layers 

 of former generations. 



Tunics. The tunics are homologous with the foliage; and the upper tunics are 

 merely the expanded bases of the proper-leaves and sheathing-leaves, with a 



