64 



ORGANOGRAPHY. 



BOOK I. 



a creeping root. It is one of those provisions of nature by 

 which the barren sands that bound tlie sea are confined 

 within their Hmits ; most of the plants which cover such soils 

 being provided with subterranean stems of this kind. It is 

 also extremely tenacious of life, the buds at every node being 

 capable of renewing the existence of the individual, hence 

 the almost indestructible properties of the Couch grass, Triti- 

 cum repens, by the ordinary operations of husbandry ; divi- 

 sions of its creeping stem, by cutting and tearing, producing 

 no other effect than that of calling new individuals into exist- 

 ence as fast as others are destroyed. The term soboles is 

 applied by Link and De Candolle to the sucker of trees and 

 shrubs. (See Surculus.) 



Of the AERIAL stem, the most remarkable forms are the 

 following : — » 



The term stem (caulis) is generally applied to the ascending 

 caudex of herbaceous plants or shrubs, and not to trees, in 

 which the word trunk is employed to indicate their main stem ; 

 sometimes, however, this is called caulis arboreus. From the 

 caulis, Linnaeus, following the older botanists, distinguished 

 the culmus or straw [Chaume, Fr.), which is the stem of 

 Grasses ; and De Candolle has further adopted the name Ca- 

 lamus {Chalumeau, Fr.) for all fistulous simple stems without 

 articulations, as those of Rushes ; but neither of these differ in 

 any material degree from common stems, and the employment* 



