11 



plants. They are, as it were, weak, or imperfect, climbers, 

 and are usually described as rambling, or straggling, e.g. 

 Quisqualis indica and Deeringia celosioides. 



A large climber with a woody stem is called a liane, e.g. 

 Bauliinia Vahlu. 



A stem rising directly from the ground, bearing flowers, 

 but no green leaves, is called a scape, e.g. Orobanche indica. 



The peculiar jointed stems of grasses and bamboos which 

 are hollow between the joints are called culms. 



The unbranched columnar stem of palms and Tree Ferns is 

 termed a caudex. 



An a3rial or subterranean branch, rooting and giving off 

 shoots which become independent plants, by the decay of the 

 branch connecting them with the parent stem, are called 

 stolons. The Potato has subterranean stolons, while the 

 rooting branches of Rubus lasiocarpus are a3rial stolons. 



A runner is a slender stolon with long internodes, well seen 

 in the Strawberry. A plant which produces a number of 

 stolons, or runners, is said to be sarmentose. 



A rhizome is a stem of root-like appearance prostrate on, or 

 buried under, the ground, giving off slender roots usually at the 

 nodes and producing erect serial shoots, or leaves, progressively 

 from the growing apex, as found in many Grasses, Bamboos and 

 the common Bracken Fern, Pteris aquilina. 



Stolons, runners, and rhizomes, are sometimes very like roots, 

 but they may always be distinguished from roots by the fact 

 that they directly give rise to leaves in the axils of which buds 

 appear, although such leaves are usually minute and scale-like. 



A bulb is a short shoot with a flattened or conical stem, 

 provided with thick, fleshy, scale-like leaves and from the 

 base of which roots are developed, e.g. the Onion. 



A corm is like a solid bulb, the main portion of the corm con- 

 sisting of the thickened stem which is naked, or with a few 

 inconspicuous, scaly, investing leaves. 



A tuber is a short thickened shoot, or part of a shoot, bearing 

 . inconspicuous scaly leaves, with buds in their axils. In the 

 Potato, tubers are formed at the ends of stolons, the so-called 

 "eyes" being the axillary buds. A tuber can be distinguish- 

 ed from a tuberous root by the fact that it bears scaly leaves, 

 in the axils of which the buds arise. Small bulbs, corms and 

 tubers sometimes appear on a3rial stems in the leaiL-axils and 

 they are then called bulbils, which are found in many species 

 of Dioscorea. They are capable of developing roots and 

 producing independent plants. 



