CONCERNING BULBS 



BY THE EDITOR 



ANYONE who has observed ever so casually the order 

 of flowering of the plants in garden or hedgerow, must 

 have noticed that bulbous plants figure prominently 

 amongst those which flower in the early months of the 

 year. Winter Aconite, Snowdrop, Crocus, Scilla, 

 Chionodoxa, Daffodil, Fritillary, Anemone, and Tulip 

 are among the greatest treasures of the spring garden, 

 and though these are not all strictly bulbous plants, they 

 all have either bulbous, tuberous, or other enlarged form 

 of root or underground stem which serves a like purpose. 

 Even those early flowers, the primroses, are borne on 

 plants whose thick, fleshy, underground parts are almost 

 tuberous in appearance; and it will be found that all the 

 earliest blooming plants of spring are furnished with 

 large stores of nutriment in root or stem. Only by 

 virtue of these granaries of materialised solar energy, 

 accumulated during the spring and summer of the 

 previous year, are plants able to manufacture leaves 

 and beautiful flowers in those early months during 

 which the sun yields little heat and light, so essential to 

 healthy plant life. 



In a sense, we may consider bulbs and tubers as 

 functionally equivalent to seeds, for they contain within 

 sundry wrappings a dormant plant and stores of food 

 material, wherewith the young plant may be nourished 

 from the time when growth commences until the plant 

 can fend for itself. 



