68 



FLOWER-LAND. 



lengthened out and are comparatively thin.* (Fig. 45, 

 cf. Figs. 1,41.) 



Search for these examples and compare them 

 together ; pull up also and compare a common nettle. 

 Get the plant well up so as to see how the young 

 nettles are beginning to grow. If you search where 

 the dead stalks of last year's nettles are, at any time 

 from January to March, you can see this very well. 



Then another kind of stem-base you know already. 

 I mean a bulb, as that of the hyacinth or snowdrop 

 (p. 17). The bulb is made up of layers which 

 can be pulled off one by one. In some, each layer 

 circles round the one next inside it. These are 

 tunicated or coated bulbs.t (Fig. 46.) In others it is 

 made up of plates or scales, which 

 overlap each other like the slates 

 or tiles upon a rounded roof, and 

 these are distinguished as scaly 

 bulbs (Garden Lily). 



But I have not yet told you about 

 what is called a " corm"\ Like 

 the bulb it is fleshy, but when you 



Fig. 46. Bulb of a Hya- examine and compare them with 

 cinth. z The layers or 



coats. one another you will soon see the 



*cf. Primrose, Sweet Flag, Iris, Solomon's Seal, Wood Anemone, Lily 

 of Valley, Sand Sedge, Couch Grass, Bindweed, cfp. 66, note ||. 



t cf. Onion, Snowdrop, Tulip, Hyacinth. 



J From the Greek " kormos" the trunk of a tree with the boughs 

 lopped off, a log. 



