BULBS, BULB LETS AND BUDS 97 



126. The onion produces flowers in umbels. 

 Fig. 97 is a bunch of "top onions," in which 

 bulbs (or bulblets) are 

 borne in the flower- 

 cluster. If the pupil 

 examines such a 

 cluster he may find, 

 as in this picture, 

 an umbel bearing 

 flowers, well -formed 

 bulblets, and leaves 

 springing from im- 

 perfect or scullion- FIG. 98. 



like bulblets In Rosette and offsets of house-leek. 



other words, flowers have been tranformed into purely 

 vegetative parts. 



126a. The pupil may have access to the tiger lily, which bears 

 bulblets in the axils of the leaves. Top onions may be had of any 

 seedsman. 



127. If bulbs are buds, then we should expect 

 to find various intermediate forms. The house -leek 

 (better known as hen -and -chickens, old -man -and 

 woman) produces dense rosettes of leaves on the 

 ground (Fig. 98). This rosette is structurally a 

 loose, open -topped bulb. The young rosettes, or 

 offsets, are produced upon short stems from the 

 under side of the rosette, rather than by the 



