7 o 



THE WHEAT PLANT 



of the soil, the strongly curved parts at this stage being the short leaf- 

 sheaths (A, Fig. 66). The extreme forms of this type are sometimes 

 called by farmers " creeping wheats." The culms of the fully developed 

 plant are bent at their bases, the whole being arranged in the form of a 

 cup (B, Fig. 67). Wheats with this habit 

 do not easily lodge and are so firmly 

 rooted in the ground that they are difficult 

 to pull up. 



In wheat plants of an ordinary field 

 crop the development of the shoots does 

 not always proceed with the regularity 

 described above. The first lateral bud, 



.' 



FIG. 64. Diagrams of the arrangement 

 of the culms of tillered plants. 



FIG. 65. Young plant with 

 erect habit. 



namely that in the axil of the coleoptile, generally remains dormant 

 or dies off altogether ; occasionally it develops and remains close to the 

 hypoctyl : the internode above it, carrying the growing point and lateral 

 buds upwards to the tillering region, the first lateral shoot in such an 

 example appearing to arise from the base of the rhizome some distance 

 below the rest of the shoots which spring later from the tillering nodes 

 (a (i), Fig. 59). Many later buds fail to develop, and the branching and 

 distribution of the shoots are therefore not so symmetrical as would be 

 the case if the buds in the axils of every leaf grew out in the order of its 



