58 DESCRIPT1YK BOTANY. PART I. 



the onion ; in the latter case, also, some of the outermost 

 lamina: are thin and membranous. The young bulbs, 

 or "cloves," as gardeners term them, are produml. as 

 we should expect, by the development of fresh buds 

 in the axils of the scales or laminse of the old bulb. 



(66.) Cormiw. The name of 

 " cormus," is given to the swollen 

 base of some stems of mono- 

 cot yledonous plants, or rather to 

 the condensed state of the whole 

 stem {fig- 50.) ; which is deve- 

 loped underground, and assumes 

 the general appearance of a coated 

 bulb, as in Crocus and Colchicum, 

 where it is sometimes erroneously 

 termed a " solid bulb ;" or else it 

 resenfbles a tuber, as in the common 

 Arum maculatum. 



(67.) Affinity of Bulb to Tuber. There is evidently 

 a great affinity between the tuber and the bulb ; each 

 consisting of the same organs, peculiarly modified, and 

 adapted to analogous purposes. In the tuber, the de- 

 position of nutriment has taken place mainly in the stem, 

 whilst the leaves, having received none, have disap- 

 peared. But in the bulb, on the other hand, the leaves 

 have generally received the greatest portion of the 

 deposited nutriment, whilst the stem is slightly, or not 

 all, distended. This affinity is strikingly exemplified 

 by the little tubers which are sometimes produced on 

 the stalks of potatoes, and which are evidently modi- 

 fications of the buds in the axils of their leaves ; the 

 bulbs on the stalks of the orange-lily alluded to in 

 art. 64., are equally modifications of the leaf-buds of 

 that plant. 



(68.) Appendages to the Stem. The various organs 

 which we have just been describing, ought rather to be 

 considered as "modifications," of certain parts of the 

 stem, than as distinct appendages to it : but we have now 

 to mention a long list of organs, situate on some part or 



