KINDS OF MULTIPLICATION 41 



do. These may grow several inches long in loose soil. 

 At their tips collects food that has been manufactured up 

 in the leaves. This causes them to enlarge at the tip and 

 to form the tuber which we imagine belongs to us rather 

 than to the plant. This potato tuber, as every one knows, 

 has "eyes." The eye is merely a bud, and from each one 

 of these eyes a new potato plant may grow. In practise, 

 we cut the potato in pieces and plant the pieces in 

 trenches prepared for them in order to get new plants 

 next year. In nature, the mother plant dies and these 

 potatoes are left free in the soil, already "planted." They 

 are not "seed," although we do call them "seed-potatoes." 

 The next spring, when suitable growing weather comes, 

 one or more eyes in each of these will send up a new 

 potato plant. 



There are many plants, especially early spring plants, 

 that store up food in one or several underground bodies, 

 and then die down. This allows multiplication, but in 

 addition it puts the plant's substance beneath the soil 

 where it may better endure the drouth of late summer and 

 the cold of v/inter. Also, a new mature plant can spring 

 from these underground stores of food much more 

 quickly than from a small seed. Thus, like the stolon, it 

 is a way of getting quick action. The tulip affords a 

 familiar example of this habit. Among wild flowers, 

 spring beauty, dutchman's breeches, and jack-in-the-pulpit 

 also have this habit. 



6. Reproduction by Leaves. Leaves, with their delicate 

 tender structure, would not seem adapted to reproduction. 

 Yet there are certain fleshy leaves which fall to the 

 ground, and, if moisture is sufficient, they will begin to 

 grow roots from the under side and to send up a little 

 stem from the upper side. In a few plants, as some 

 begonias, one can get a new plant by using a leaf instead 

 of a twig as a cutting. A very attractive little fern is 

 known as the "walking fern" from a surprising habit it 



