LECT. IV.] THE ROOT. BULBS. 169 



rounds the general cavity ; and within the ex- 

 panded bases of these leaves the young bulbs are 

 seated. As in the case of tubers, although the 

 young bulbs are the production of the existing 

 plant, yet, as has been already remarked, they 

 have a vascular communication with the soil 

 through the medium both of their direct parent 

 and the old decaying bulb*. From this examina- 

 tion the following physiological conclusions may 

 be drawn ; that, in this species of the solid bulb, 

 the old bulb is exhausted in the production of the 

 herbaceous part of the plant by the functions of 

 which the bulbs immediately incumbent upon it, 

 and which bear that plant, are perfected, and by 

 which the embryon bulbs, seated on each of 

 them, are also formed. Towards the autumn, the 

 exhaustion of the old bulb is completed ; and the 

 vinculum which connects together the bulbs seated 

 on it, and which are now perfected, being thus 

 broken, they separate ; and each remains as a 

 distinct being, to be in its turn exhausted, in the 

 production of the plant of the ensuing year, and 

 of its series of bulbs. 



2. The Lateral solid bulb (Bulbus solidus la- 

 teralis) is named from the new bulbs being formed 

 on each side of the old, as exemplified in Colchi- 

 cum autumnale. In this species of solid bulb, the 



* Vide Plate 1. fig. 6. d. 



