MORPHOLOGY OF THE VEGETATIVE ORGANS 103 



the stolons or rhizomes. A common method in case of the 

 latter grass is to cut sod into small pieces by means of an 

 ax or a feed-cutter and to drop these upon prepared ground, 

 forcing them in by pressure of the foot. Or, so readily do 

 these pieces of stems grow, they may be sown broadcast 

 and harrowed in or pressed in with a roller. 



THE LEA.F 



129. The leaf is a lateral organ of the stem borne 

 singly at the nodes. A normally developed foliage-leaf 

 consists of two parts, the sheath and the blade. The 

 sheath envelopes the culm above the node; the blade is 

 the long narrow flat portion to which the name leaf is 

 often applied. At the junction of the sheath and blade 

 is found an appendage called the ligule. 



Leaves are arranged on the culm alternately, in two 

 ranks or rows. That is, the blade of a leaf at one node is 

 on the side opposite the one below, while the third blade 

 is above the first and on the same side of the culm. This 

 universal arrangement, easy to observe in corn, is often 

 obscured by the twisting of the culm or sheaths, by which 

 the leaves may appear to be more or less in one rank or 

 to be spirally arranged. 



When the internodes of a shoot have failed to elongate 

 so that the leaves remain in a tuft or fascicle, the actual 

 distichous arrangement of the leaves is distorted by the 

 mutual pressure of these organs, by which they may 

 appear to radiate in all directions. 



Leaves may be reduced to scales or bracts. Reduced 

 leaves that appear on a shoot below the foliage-leaves are 

 called scales. Those that appear above the foliage-leaves 

 are called bracts. 



